Rift
by antepathy
Summary: Follow-on from "Redeem".  Everyone's back where they should be, but...there are consequences.   43 chapters total
1. Aftermath

A/N Here we go again! Picks up right after Redeem. This is more plot driven, so…hopefully I've finally managed to avoid the 'let's have characters standing around contemplating' bits that suck down the pace. HOPEFULLY.

Diego Garcia

Flareup let the hard wash of Vortex's rotors push down at her, blocking him with her body from any shots from her own—alleged—side. The heavy copter took altitude quickly, waiting until the last of the ambulances began wheeling away. Courtesy, or observation? Flareup didn't care. He'd come without backup to deliver a load of injured humans—humans who had been injured by his own side, injured for what they had done to Barricade.

Vortex's words fought in her cortex—the humans have a weapon. They can kill us now, and wouldn't, probably, hesitate. The thought chilled any warmth she might have summoned up for the injured humans she helped offload from the Decepticon's hold. They were injured and frightened and in need of help, and she gave it, but her core was numb. They were also the ones who had killed Barricade with this new weapon. She could not bring herself to hate them—she had given up on hate. But she could only stir so much sympathy for them. And she knew she could never trust them: they had come by these injuries righteously.

And Vortex's other comments—his rejection of her desire to come with him, to leave these Autobots she no longer was. She was disturbed by…what? His insight? The fact that his reason wasn't a put down—that she was too small or too frail to survive. He'd said she wouldn't like what she'd have to become. And he was right. It had been a foolish request, regretted almost as soon as she'd asked it. But he hadn't blown her off or treated her like a child. He'd shown her more understanding and compassion than her own side. He'd listened. And believed. And made his decision, for her own good. She'd thought only Optimus had that ability—certainly not some battered veteran Decepticon warrior. Not the enemy. How could he tell? How could he read her so well when her own side—her own SISTERS—could not?

She could feel the frustration radiating from Sideswipe, Cliffjumper and the others, as she blocked their shot, her parti-colored optics trained on them, defying them to break the peace and shoot at Vortex. Show what they really were—Autobots? If they were, she wasn't one. But Vortex was right: she wasn't a Decepticon either. She was some…third thing that didn't have a name yet. And didn't seem to have a side.

[***]

Ironhide approached, cannons aimed at Vortex's underbelly as the copter grabbed air. Just like last time, Flareup thought—a Decepticon copter, and Flareup rolling away. Only this time she didn't think it was into the loving arms of her own team.

"You all right?" Ironhide said, his optics still trained on Vortex as the copter wheeled in the sky to his exit vector. Before she could answer, he called over his shoulder, "Someone tracking his path?"

"Got it," Sideswipe's voice came.

Ironhide danced sideways, keeping himself, Flareup noticed, in Vortex's firing angle. Drawing his fire, in case the copter decided to shoot. And she remembered that Ironhide had been the one to call a hold fire at Vortex's approach. Where was Optimus? Flareup lifted her optics and saw him, on the edge of the crowd, helping Ratchet to divvy up the refugees into the vehicles to transport to the base hospital. Not…leading. Ironhide had stepped in, and taken command. Without a fuss, without flash. With…almost a glimmer of his old confidence.

"I'm fine. Refugees?" she asked.

"Being taken care of." Ironhide's optics—and cannons—tracked Vortex's wheeling maneuver. Flareup's own gaze followed. Would Vortex start shooting, now that he was unencumbered?

"Thanks," Flareup said. Ironhide's gaze broke, his head snapping over to her, startled.

"For what?"

"Taking charge. Telling them to hold fire. All those humans owe you their lives for that."

"Yeah? To be honest, not sure how I feel about that part."

A faint smile. "Not sure, either. Vortex said they were testing a weapon. To use against us."

She didn't have to spell it out—weapons that worked against 'cons worked just as well against their kind. If there was one thing Ironhide could grasp implicitly, it was weaponry. Ironhide's mouth thinned. His gaze flicked up to Vortex, who was well out of range, his rotors a faint and fading beating of the bright, midday air. "Maybe those humans will remember this, then."

"They won't remember it right," Flareup muttered. "But I will."

[***]

Vortex lifted off from the tarmac, his rotors pushing the shimmering heat back into the ground as he caught air. He kept his external visuals at 360 span, determined not to get fired upon. He didn't trust the Autobots not to attack him, especially now that he wasn't laden with soft pink little protection. It should have bothered him that they were a meat shield for him. It didn't. He was too old, and too tired. Fight, if that was the order. But he'd suffered enough at his own initiative. He'd lost his entire team—even before the Crisis Accords severed the gestalts, he'd done enough to make his team completely useless. That's what initiative had gotten him. No. From then on, he had followed orders. And his orders here had been to deliver the humans from the ship to safety and offload them. From there…he was on his own. It would be easy to leave. Head up, back to the Nemesis. Mission accomplished. There was nothing to be gained by anything other than obedience. It would not make Barricade any less likely to be dead. It would not take away the destructive technology of the humans.

Yet…. To scurry off like a coward, as though he were afraid of the humans and their newfound capabilities. As though they were afraid.

And suddenly he felt a surge of dark rage break through what suddenly seemed like a thick shroud of numbness that had been wrapped over him and reality for…ages now. As though he had been in some sort of half-animation, a quasi-droneling, until this fury took him and shook him apart. Awake.

He was out of range, but he could fix that. He spun around opening up with his howitzer as soon as he hit level, dropping altitude to bring his machine guns into usable range. The rounds punched across the tarmac, gouging gravel from the ground in an unwavering line of small craters, stitching toward the loaded vehicles.

The humans responded first…not a surprise, Vortex thought. But their weapons could barely reach him. A slight jerk in altitude and he was out of range, gravity slowing the force of their rounds till they barely slapped against his heavy armor.

His rounds were not so effete. He felt his systems grit in satisfaction, a hunger he hadn't felt in a long time roaring to life like a third engine in him, as he heard the unmistakable howl of a mech in pain, saw pink and red and green liquids geyser out of wounds. He would show them the same mercy they showed his kind for megacycles. He would pay the humans back for Barricade, a toll in their own lives. He would make them think twice about their next victim. He'd seen the stasis-cuffs—what was left of them, charred against the melted tires of Barricade's wrists. He wanted them to know that their next victims would not be so encumbered. Or passive.

He heard the larger thooms of Ironhide's cannons. Two rounds, hastily fired, easily evaded in 4D motion. But he didn't want Ironhide to have a chance to recalibrate. He'd proved his point. He'd made a statement in the smoldering wrecks of the non-sentient vehicles, in the thin pitiful cries of the humans who had ridden him to safety, treated him like a machine.

They would not make the same mistake again.


	2. Regeneration

_Repair Bay Beta, High Regen_

Barricade was dead, free of it all, finally. Like this massive weight had been cut free from him, letting him lift, up, away, beyond, leaving behind once and for all the clumsy misshapen mass of screw ups and wrong ways that had been Barricade had dropped away into some cool and compassionate abyss, and now…suddenly, he was not. He began to think he could understand Bonecrusher's objections. To be dragged back to life when one had finally given in to death…it was an agony that mere physical sensation was entirely inadequate to describe. It was as if his spark was rent from his chassis, shattered into a thousand pieces, and then blasted back together. As if all sense of belonging had been jammed back into an alienated isolation, a hard bubble of self.

There had been no vision of a happy afterlife. Not a surprise: He didn't deserve one. But the Well? Rejoining the Great Spark? Those feelings of serenity and contentment he'd always read about? They never happened to him.

Unless, of course, he had failed at dying. Which, unfortunately, would not surprise him either.

Instead he had felt…maybe a kind of relief at unspooling. At ending. Only to have that torn away from him, thrust violently back into life. It felt like a rape. The deepest violation of will he could imagine.

He onlined his optics.

Alone. Floating in the tepid goo of a high-end regen tank, the energon rich broth feeding his self repair nanites. He tried to move his head, to look down. To see how bad it was. He had a sickened desire to survey the horrors of his damage. A curiosity to see if it looked as bad as it had felt. His actuators would not fire, their electrical signals grounded by the broth. He could not even, he discovered, blink. He could only online and offline his optics.

He offlined them. There was nothing he wanted to see.

[***]

Starscream's gestures were more tense and twitchy than usual. Blackout noticed it immediately, how nervous—no, nervous wasn't the right word…edgy Starscream was. Like he was guilty and waiting to be caught out in something. Yes, the entire mission had been unauthorized. They'd all simply…dropped off monitoring for the duration. No one had been under any illusion they'd get away with it. They all knew their action would have consequences. They were not uninformed. Starscream hadn't lied about that. They'd all decided, perhaps for their own reasons, to sign on to the mission. Blackout still wasn't quite sure what his own were: partly it was Barricade, though he knew that in the machinery of war, no cog was irreplaceable and having any attachment to any one mech was minimum, dangerous and maximum, foolhardy.

Partly, also, though, was Blackout's own guilt. As if helping defrag this would erase his failure with Scorponok. There had been no time, back then. No time. The mission called, and mission priorities always overrode…everything. Even basic survival. And so he'd abandoned Scorponok, flown halfway across this slaggin' globe, with the thought they'd find each other again, when things calmed down.

Things hadn't calmed down. First there had been his own near death, clawing his way up, inch by inch, from the blasted ocean depths. Then setting up for the arrival of the others and constant harrying runs, inserting and extricating search teams. He'd taken as many open mission windows as he could and overflown as much of the terrain as he could, risking from time to time opening his comm freq and locator signal. Nothing. No response. And he'd tried, but those open mission window flights became fewer and fewer as he lost energy, lost hope. As new worries crowded into his cortex.

"The readouts are stable," he said, clumsily. Trying to do something to bridge the gaping silence. Trying to say something hopeful. Starscream shifted in front of the blanked wall of the regen pod. Blackout watched as Starscream tapped the controls, rendering the wall transparent.

Barricade—what was left of him—hung suspended in the clear energon broth. His entire endoskeletal system had been stripped off—too damaged to repair or patch. His main system cables hung, fine monofilaments drifting in the slow circulating current of the broth, barely distinguishable as limb-controls. The head and the spark chamber were the only things more or less intact—the facial plating had been stripped of the chromed crests, the audio ports dangled exposed bare wires. He looked…naked. Blackout turned away: Starscream kept looking, with a tension in his frame as though he were forcing himself to watch.

"I worry," Starscream said, softly, "that he will not be the same."

Blackout wanted to reach over and re-blank the pod wall. More to try to cut off that thought than anything else. Yeah. He'd worried about that too. Starscream had mentioned—more than that, really—that since his resurrection, Megatron was different. Blackout hadn't made the connection at first, but now…it was becoming almost undeniable. He'd used to care. He'd used to at least have concern that his troops had their required materials in the field. Now he demanded the impossible. Saw threats everywhere. Pushed everyone away. Was the same, and yet, not the same. Something had been lost. Something that had held the rage in check. Something that had stripped him of anything like compassion.

Would the same happen to Barricade? Blackout found himself hoping not. He didn't know if he wanted Barricade to come back if Barricade came back like that. What if the same thing happened to Barricade?

No. Barricade wasn't dead. The repairbots were stupidly ruthless that way: were he unfixable as a mech, they would have torn him apart for salvage and scrap. There was something there. He wasn't dead. He wouldn't come back changed.

Then again, it had to change you. Blackout had been in regen more than once himself. Never this bad—he thought. He'd never seen himself: maybe he had looked this naked, this broken, this pitiful. It was not a comforting thought. Even on the ocean floor, even not truly dead but merely skirting dangerously near it…. And he'd changed: felt his own proximity to mortality suddenly snap sharply into focus, almost with a sense of vertigo.

He didn't want Barricade to change that much. He hadn't liked the mech until they'd been on the scouting party together. Even then, he would have described Barricade as sufficiently competent, and nothing more. Barricade wasn't a warrior: he had no range weapon. His close-in weapon was all but useless against armor rated higher than epsilon. But it had been the interrogation that had won him, in a weird way, over. Blackout had seen how far Barricade was willing to push himself, everyone, in the name of doing his job. Risking his uneasy truce with Starscream, Risking himself. He'd seen how the smaller mech struggled, the toll it had taken on him, and he'd taken it, uncomplaining. A kind of courage, a kind of loyalty, Blackout could respect.

And Barricade's struggle to accept himself—oh, Blackout knew that too well. He knew his rules must seem hypocritical to others—he authorized for himself brutalities and violence he condemned in others. He'd fought his own fight to construct a way he could stand proud of his deeds, think of them as achievements, not atrocities. Barricade's struggle he could respect.

And now this.

He became aware of Starscream's expectancy, waiting for him to say something. The jet's long fingers hovered over the controls, peering desperately at the blank optics hung in the liquid, hoping for a glimmer of life, of reassurance. What had Starscream said? Oh yes.

He couldn't lie. "He'll still be Barricade. But it will change him. It changes all of us."

"Yes," Starscream said, with one last lingering look through the liquid. "All of us have changed." His tone was unutterably sad.


	3. Punishment

2. Punishment

It had been a decacycle since the mission on the aircraft carrier. Which was, Dead End discovered, more than enough time for the thrill of battle to have worn off. The praise Blackout had given him had been an unaccustomed warm glow, but even that had cooled. And he was back to his usual cocoon of loneliness.

He hated the Nemesis. Hated the fraggin' Crisis Intervention Accord that had decreed that the gestalts could not serve together. His team hadn't ever been the poster child for unanimity, but they understood him, put up with him, gave him someone to turn to. Here, he was so alone he was clinging to even the smallest and most pitiful shreds of praise, of connection. Pathetic. He even warmed to praise from Starscream, the mech who had done this to him, he thought, ruefully, rubbing his too-new skull plating.

The strange irony was that this was supposed to be punishment: he'd been sentenced by Soundwave for his participation in what he'd known had been an unauthorized mission to droneling duty. Tedious stuff, shepherding a batch of dronelings around the Nemesis, where they could see and learn and be stimulated and eventually, eventually, attain sentience.

He didn't mind it, though he wished they could talk back. They were really good listeners, nodding and chirping in appropriate places of his narratives, as he told them all about the other Stunticons, what a slaghead Starscream was, and how the universe was slowly but surely heading to a bitter, cold, empty death. Dead End was really starting to like them, and the way they huddled together when they got nervous ached in his spark. He knew what that fear felt like, and he envied in no small part their ability to take comfort from each other.

And he knew he'd be mocked enough to short out his audio if anyone knew he liked the little things. So…he kept it to himself, kept his head down, and kept his vocalizer low enough that no one could hear him. And he tried to keep the bounce from his step as he approached the droneling podbay.

"All right, Batch UE829," he said, as the door whooshed open in front of him. "Today we're going to-."

The bay resounded with his words. Empty. Echoing. Where were they? He was their assigned dronemaster. They were his batch. They should be waiting here for him, their faces sweetly blank and patient. Where were they?

His core went cold. Had he lost them? An entire batch of dronelings? No. He wasn't the most responsible mech in the universe, but even he couldn't lose a deca of dronelings. They weren't—he didn't think—at the level of sub-sentience where they could just get up and wander off. They didn't have the secure code for the pod door for one thing. But…where? He'd put them here yesterday, even gone around to each one and made sure it'd plugged itself into its recharge socket correctly. They'd BEEN right HERE!

Dead End whirled in panic. They were gone. Gone. Lost. All his fault. Oh, slag. What the frag they do to you when you fail at your punishment?

He called up his duty roster, trying to think who he could contact who wouldn't blow out his circuitry even over comm.

His capacitor dropped charge. No. He couldn't have. Mis…misread his schedule? There, in the pale green of Daily Duty Assignments, 'Monitor Active Satellite.' But where? He called up the previous dutycycle's schedule. Again—Active Satellite.

Something was very wrong. He knew he wasn't the paranoid one of his team—his team…! But had he, had he been away from them so long that he was taking parts of them onto himself? Was he just imagining it? Was he becoming Wildrider? No. He KNEW he was here last dutycycle. More than that, he knew that if he'd actually been scheduled for Act Sat, and blown it off, he'd be in about a half-dozen different pieces in Repair Bay.

Which left that someone had tampered with his scheduling. Normally he'd write it off as a mech ganking with him, but this time, an entire batch was missing. That was beyond any of even the meanest tricks they'd pulled on him. He had a bad feeling about this. Well, worse than usual.

He knew it with a clammy certainty he rarely had that they were dead. Offline. Permanently. Before they even knew what life was, to even decide for themselves if they liked it or not. In a way it was probably mercy, Dead End thought. They had such a small store of memories—not much was lost. But in a way, wasn't it even more awful like that? Each of the few memories they had like a precious jewel—their first taste of energon, magnified by being, perhaps, their last as well. Each day, each cycle of online was huge to them—an ocean of new experiences. They had yet to learn—a lesson only time could teach—boredom. Tedium. Everything was still so new and brightly shiny and…it was taken away from them, jerked out of their unprotesting hands.

And…some of their last memories were of him. He choked at the thought.

The wet chill in his systems burst into flame. He would make the others remember. Just dronelings, right? Useless? Fit only to go where you tell them, shoot where you aim them, DIE where you lead them. His hands clenched in fury. He would do something—something! He couldn't bring them back. He already knew that, with a steel certainty. But he could make others notice, pay attention, if only to the price being paid.

Yeah, it'll irritate others. So fraggin' what? What's irritation compared to DEATH? They gonna throw away lives, they're deserve to have a prick of conscience, and that's what Dead End will do. He doesn't' even care about himself. Who cares about him? No one! He doesn't care. Why let it bother him? They won't kill him, really, so why not needle them. Remind them of the price they're paying.

That, he thought, is my job. Remind them what they're doing. Make them really see it.

He swore aloud, both an imprecation and a promise. UE829 would not be forgotten. They could barely remember—he would not let anyone forget.


	4. Long Time Coming

A/N We check in with the Autobots! I want to thank everyone who's taken the time to leave a nice comment and review: it really means so much to me!

4. _Long Time Coming_

Ironhide had had enough. Someone had to confront Optimus about this. Of all the many things mechs could say bad about Ironhide, they could not say that he was not forthright. No sneaking around. If you were his enemy, you knew it. He had spent considerable effort—and pride—in making that true.

Not that Optimus was his enemy. But…he'd heard enough grumbling, suffered enough doubt, and he wanted answers. He needed answers. Now. This wasn't about him or his pride: this was about their future. Here, or not. Prowl had been right: they'd used up more than half of the time they had left to utilize the Diego Garcia base and there had been no guidance from Optimus. All preparation had been organized by Prowl himself. Preparation that could only go so far without them knowing what they were preparing for: off planet? On planet? Were they leaving this system entirely?

He crossed the hangar. Sideswipe was whining and squirming under Flareup's care as she hoseclamped a leaking line. More than half of his histrionics seemed designed to get Flareup's sympathy—one optic winked at Ironhide as he went by. Ironhide, unfortunately, wasn't in a joking mood. But Sideswipe needed to do it—needed to make some public show that he was in control of himself. Vortex's attack had…disrupted a lot of things.

"Optimus," he bellowed. He wasn't in a subtle mood, either. Anything he had to say he would say in front of the entire Autobot army. And if Optimus were any kind of leader, he'd do the same. Subterfuge was for cowards and Decepticons.

Optimus turned from where he was kneeling, listening to a wildly expostulating human. "I will be with you in one moment, Ironhide," he said, patiently. The other mechs in the area fell silent—even Sideswipe's laugh fading.

"No. You will be with me, NOW." Humans. Ironhide would not be put behind humans again. Optimus would remember his loyalties. Ironhide had switched sides for the ideal that the Autobots had promised, and he would hold Optimus to those ideals. He gritted his jaw as he saw Optimus's flicker of surprise. Oh yes, he thought, I remember who you are, Optimus Prime. Do you?

"Ironhide, this is really not the time…," Optimus began, gesturing at the human. "Humans have been injured." Did Ironhide not understand the need for delicacy? Optimus worked so hard to prevent the humans from feeding their xenophobia and fear that the Autobots had come with conquest in mind. He did not enjoy the effort, and he was beginning to think he was not very good at it: Sam had turned away. Lennox…well, Lennox understood but served his country, meaning his loyalty and obedience was to his own kind. Optimus had to respect that. And Lennox gave him hope.

And Ironhide's outburst could destroy everything he'd been working for.

"Humans have tested a weapon," Ironhide countered. "On one of our kind." He could hear a ripple of sound around him. Flareup had told him in confidence, but there was no reason to keep it that way. They all needed to know their danger. They all needed to know the truth. The Optimus he knew, the Optimus he followed, would not shrink from the truth.

"We do not know that," Optimus said. He was trying hard not to let his impatience show. Ironhide had done an exemplary job on the runway, controlling the unloading of the helicopter. He did not want to take that achievement away from him. "I am attempting to discover what happened from the humans."

"You trust them to tell the truth?" Ironhide challenged. The Russians sprang to both their processors. They were still hanging under the cloud—global governments all suddenly restricting airspace access, politely demurring that they did not need help, thank you.

"Do you trust a Decepticon?"

"Do you?" Ironhide's optics blazed in open challenge. They never forgot he was not one of them, not from the start. He would not let them forget now. He saw the comment strike home. Yes. You didn't trust me: I return the favor. This rift, you started.

Cliffjumper crossed over, his too-new face creased with concern. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Humans have a weapon that can kill us."

"They had one before—those high heat rounds things."

"This is worse." Ironhide fumbled. He didn't have any details, beyond what Flareup had told him, and Flareup had heard it from the 'con copter. And he certainly hadn't rushed to believe Barricade. Why trust Vortex? Because even Ironhide knew genuine rage when he saw it. And those shots that had torn up the runway, punched a new hole in Sideswipe, cracked Armorhide's engine block, those were sincere, helpless, frustrated rage.

He knew more about that than he cared to admit.

"Are you saying they deserved Vortex's attack?" Optimus asked. Not angry, never angry. Just…trying to understand. As if Ironhide was—still—speaking a different language. As though he never quite got 'Autobot' right. Not intended to sting, but it stung nonetheless.

"No! Of course not. I just," Ironhide's own gaze dropped to the human, whose clothing was scorched and tattered. "We have to figure stuff out." All of his rage, all of his righteousness, seemed faded right now. Unimportant. But this was important. He blundered on, "Like, where are we going? When? Are we even staying in this star system?" They'd used up almost half of the time that they'd been given on Diego Garcia. Prowl had had them pack up, but…without knowing where they were ultimately going, it was hard to do some of the preparation.

"We are still discussing matters," Optimus said.

Even Cliffjumper snapped at that. "We? Who is we? You haven't been discussing a thing with any of us!"

"There hasn't been time." Why wouldn't they understand that? Since their return from Tunguska, Optimus hadn't had a chance to so much as recharge, it seemed. He could feel himself fraying, losing control.

Ironhide felt his mouth set. "And…now isn't 'the time' either, is it?"

"We need to take care of the humans. It is our fault they were damaged." We gave them Barricade. We didn't protect them. We…didn't do something right. Optimus just had to figure out what it was.

"If we believe Vortex," Cliffjumper said, "They brought it on themselves. Oh come on, Optimus," he said, quickly. "I'm not trying to say it that way. Just that, you know, we should be careful."

"Careful," Optimus responded, "Is making sure that we do not lose sight of our protection of the humans." His voice had that unshakeable timbre that had once stirred Ironhide to fierce loyalty. Now…it grated in his audio. Like a charlatan's trick.

"I'm not sure they need, or deserve, our protection," Ironhide muttered. "First with the nuke, and now this. Seems like they can take care of themselves without our help."

"You know that's not true," Optimus remonstrated.

Ironhide's hands balled. "Oh, do I? Do THEY? They certainly seem not to need—or want—our help." He glared down at the human, defying contradiction. The human said nothing, looking as wary as Ironhide felt. No trust there. No loyalty, no honor.

Optimus had no answer for that. Ironhide stared at him for a long moment, his mouth a tight line. He shook his head, disappointed in Optimus, disappointed in himself. Another false idol. Another hollow ideal.


	5. Called to Account

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's reading, whether you're commenting or not. I do love hearing that people are enjoying and speculating about what's going to happen next! I should get less sucky about responding to them, I guess. :C

5. _Called to Account  
_Nemesis

It was only a matter of time, Starscream had always known, before he'd be called to account. Before Megatron would finally find him worthy enough—unworthy enough—of correction. He'd been summoned, alone. Which meant that at least his humiliation would be private. He thought back to the prior times he had been here, since Megatron's return and revival.

First the shock of being reduced to the other side—no longer in charge, but standing before the command chair, awaiting orders, direction, correction. That had felt like a hot slap to his ego, which faded, eventually, into a dry discomfort. Then, the grinding humiliation, as Megatron sought, again and again, to remind him of his place. As if the cramped quarters weren't enough of a reminder. As if the obsequies he was forced to trill in Megatron's honor weren't debasing enough. As if…he needed any reminder at all of his own failings. He had etched them onto his armor—once a symbol of promise, inscribing onto himself the warrior's ethos, becoming a living text, a code made real. Now, they were a visible reminder of what he thought he could be. Failed potential, paid for with agony.

He stood before Megatron—_Lord_ Megatron, he reminded himself, bitterly—feeling the other's optics scorch up and down his frame. It had been solar cycles since the mission, and only now did Megatron figure that the anxiety had built enough—that Starscream had spent enough worry to wear himself down, to be too weak to stand before Megatron.

Megatron did not count on (nor did Starscream really expect) the steady, hot fire burning in his chassis that had ignited when he'd seen what the humans had done to Barricade. Only part of the fire's heat was for the humans and their 'experiment'; the rest was for Barricade. For failing Barricade, more precisely. He had promised to get him back. He had promised to fix things.

He had failed.

And that hurt him worse than anything Megatron could do to him. It was an uncomfortable kind of strength, a stillness born of restless motion, a power born of weakness.

"You have yet to account," Megatron said, coolly, "for this unauthorized mission."

"I have the ability as second in command," so long as he still clutched on to that title, "to authorize expedient strike force missions." This was a ploy he knew would fail. It was true enough, but truth never hampered Megatron from his rages. But it might keep the worst of the blowback from the other mechs who had risked so much. And for…almost nothing.

"Expedient strike force," Megatron echoed, as though the phrase was a joke and he was trying to taste the humor. "And your so-worthy target?"

"Retrieval of Barricade."

"How…very timely of you, Starscream." Megatron leaned forward. "You're getting better. It took you how long to 'retrieve' me?"

The remark stung, but not as much as Megatron intended. Starscream wavered with the idea of not reacting at all—he suddenly found the capability within himself. No. Blackout had been right all that time ago. Give him what he wants. Take your punishment and get out. Resist…for what end? There was no audience to impress. There was no dignity to be lost. He let his optics drop, as if in shame. He could hear Megatron's power lines thrum.

"Too long," he said, quietly. Starscream didn't think this would save him. He was not that foolish.

"Yes." Megatron sat back, optics on Starscream, considering. "And why retrieve Barricade at all?"

Oh, reasons I dare not even try to explain to myself, Starscream thought. Barricade reminded him of a long-forgotten part of himself, something he hadn't realized he had lost, and desperately wanted back. More magical thinking—that Barricade was a talisman back to a time when he was honorable and proud and not just an aping, gaping echoing shell. "Barricade has extensive specialized modifications that might have been exploited." Too late, he realized his misstep.

"Might have been. Probably were. He is valueless to us now."

"Not valueless." No one is ever valueless, Starscream thought. He had had to strive for so long to hold the command together of what had once been a proud Decepticon army. He had learned that every mech had his strengths, abilities, uses. He had been too desperate to turn anyone away, fearful that a possible ally might prove to have hidden talents. Hadn't he, after all, seen the potential in Barricade all those ages ago? "For one thing, my lord," he struggled not to choke on the word, "Barricade may be aware of what they took from him." Megatron waved his long-clawed hand, dismissively. "For another, we have discovered, through this mission, that the humans are developing a weapon to use against us."

"An ineffective weapon."

Starscream was torn between telling Megatron to view Barricade—what was left of him—for himself before he declared the weapon ineffective, and a fear that if he did so, Megatron might terminate Barricade's regeneration. Which mattered more? Being right? Or Barricade? He hoped this split the difference: "If they were able to do this much damage on the first test, my lord…." Megatron was no fool. At least, he used not to be.

Megatron tilted his head, optics narrowed. "Yes." He kicked one of his feet out toward Starscream, letting the treads roll, expressing a kind of emotion Starscream didn't know how to read. His words left no doubt as to the stakes. "Barricade's regeneration may proceed."

Where, earlier, Starscream had found it hard to feel the hurt Megatron tried to inflict, this time he found it hard not to express the fierce relief at the words. He had saved…perhaps…Barricade's life. He had not broken his word.

"Yes, my lord." He hesitated, waiting to be dismissed, half-turning.

"Do not think," Megatron said, his voice smooth with amusement, "that I do not see this for what it is. A bid for power. A rehearsal for betrayal. I am not blind, Starscream."

No, Starscream thought. It is only that you see what isn't there. Although by seeing with such focus, you may, he thought, darkly, make it be.


	6. Balancing Act

6. _Balancing Act_

Optimus couldn't help but feel that he had let Ironhide down. He felt, in fact, that he was beginning to lose control. Too many things he had to keep track of, too many factors to weigh and assess. Too many egos to be careful of, too many motives to try to plumb, too many needs to be balanced. War was never simple, but…he'd never run such a fine line between war and diplomacy—and forced stealth—before. The one thing Optimus did not have too much of was time. And he feared his patience was in short supply as well, but still he summoned enough of himself to answer the call from Major Lennox. Lennox did not deserve to have Optimus's problems spill over onto him.

"Yes, Major," he said, hoping the exhaustion, stress and worry didn't show in his voice. "I hope you are well. And your family." He secretly felt a sort of envy for Lennox's ability to have both his career and a private life. Optimus had been fighting for so long—they all had—that they didn't seem capable of drawing that boundary for themselves. War had invaded everything, every thought, every action…every interaction.

"Everyone's fine," Lennox said, a little too quickly. Almost like he didn't want to talk about it. "Got some bad news, though. For you."

Just what Optimus needed. "Yes?" Best to hear it now, add another factor to the list. Know so at least they wouldn't be taken by surprise again.

"NEST's been dismantled. We no longer exist as a unit. We've all been reassigned to other commands." Lennox's anger carried through his voice.

Optimus's spark sank, although, he told himself, this was hardly unexpected. It felt like losing a friend. He tried to console himself that it was not like other friends or allies Optimus had lost—Lennox and the others were still alive, and probably more likely to remain alive now. "I am sorry to hear that," he said, sincerely. Lennox had never been anything but steadfast and honorable. Optimus was unsure where he stood with most humans—especially after Tunguska and its fallout—but he knew Lennox. Trusted him. Had that trust proven worthy time and again.

"It's all right," Lennox said, though his tone said anything but 'all right.' "Gave us first pick of assignments, so I get to pack the whole family up for Vicenza."

"That is good?"

"Oh yeah. Sarah's thrilled. She's always wanted to learn Italian, and we're thinking that maybe Annabelle could pick up some of the language and all that. It's a great opportunity." He didn't sound like he thought it was so great. He sounded like he was trying to force himself to believe it as much as Optimus.

"Your priority is with your family and their happiness," Optimus said, blandly. What would it be like to have that? To worry about someone's happiness and not their mere survival?

"Yeah, but that's not the bad news. Obviously."

"Yes." Optimus regretted that he seemed to have lost—if he'd ever had—the ability to have normal conversations. Everything seemed to turn into a status report.

"Well," a hesitation. "From what we've heard, there's been a lot of complaints about us. Well, you, really, but we've been the cover story, right? Stuff we never heard about. It's been going on for a while."

"Complaints?"

"Mostly property damage." Lennox chuffed. "Like they think it's that easy to take out a giant alien robot."

"Oh." Yes. 'Property damage'—a priority to balance. Optimus felt a raw ache of guilt. The human structures were surprisingly fragile, and they had done enormous damage to road and buildings and the like. But, Lennox was right. If they could have discovered an easier way to defeat their opponents, the Autobots would have embraced it.

"Yeah, and there's this whole foreign policy fiasco. They're saying you went rogue and commandeered American aircraft to go to Russia. The Soviets are flipping out."

Yes, Optimus had seen that. "We were fighting Decepticons. Surely they acknowledge that." And the Russians had worked with them. Invited them! This level of duplicity was…something even Megatron had never stooped to. Subtlety and malice without forethought. Without aim.

"Not so surely," Lennox tried a laugh. It failed. "Mostly they have their panties in a bunch because they didn't have advance notice to get a story in place before the phones started ringing in the embassies. Diplomats hate getting caught with their pants down."

That seemed…an odd mix of expressions. "I do not see how dismantling NEST will alter that, however." It would remove their 'cover story', as Lennox had called it. Their own duplicity. Optimus frowned.

"Yeah. Well, it seems we've both been replaced. They've got this new weapon. Harpoon or something. They swear it'll just stop a 'con in his tracks. No muss, no fuss."

"New weapon?" Ironhide's words echoed back to him. And how quickly he'd dismissed him.

"Yeah, they just tested it and apparently, well, the prototype got destroyed but they are greenlighting production of replicas as in ASAP."

Ironhide had been right, Optimus thought. Not that he'd thought Ironhide was lying; simply that he was too credulous. "That is…alarming," he admitted. Ironhide's point had been that they had tested a weapon against a Cybertronian. Not just a Decepticon. And Optimus did not know if he trusted the humans to respect that difference any longer.

"And something happened earlier today that has the 'Gon hopping like a kicked-over anthill. I can't find out anything other than they won't tell me or anyone who's had any connection with NEST. Which, if you read between the lines, says a lot."

Yes. They didn't want any humans who might harbor positive feelings towards Cybertronians to know what was going on. Optimus didn't have to guess how the prototype had been destroyed. He wondered if he should tell Lennox that part of the story. Then felt dismay that he even had to ask that question of himself. "I believe that the Decepticons were behind the destruction of the prototype," he offered.

"Ah. So…that was the test, then." A pause. "On your prisoner."

Optimus winced. Yes. HIS prisoner. One he had had some obligation to protect. And failed. And now…? "Yes." What else could he say? An admission of defeat.

Lennox cursed. "Should have figured on that. Just that…the group that wanted him didn't do that. I know that guy. He's a straight shooter. Served with him in Afghanistan. This…just doesn't sound like him."

"The Master Sergeant?" The Master Sergeant was here, a refugee from the attack. Optimus would have to investigate. He hated that every human's motives were now up for question.

"Yeah. Good guy. Well, for that field. And not a weapons guy at all." Another uncomfortable huff. "I feel like I let you down, Optimus. Should have known better."

Optimus knew the feeling. "You did your best, Lennox, and no one could ask for more than your best."

"Yeah, but it's another kind of horrible feeling to know that your best? Isn't damn good enough."

"Yes," Optimus could not have said it better himself, could not have expressed in human words what he was feeling half so succinctly.

He had failed. The humans didn't need them, but more, they didn't want them. This could have, should have, been a new start for the Autobots, a new planet, a new way to live, a new harmony to find. And somehow, Optimus thought, I have ruined it. With all the best of intentions, it has all crumbled between my fingers, as though made of sand. I have ruined it. Not the Decepticons. Me.


	7. Lost Impressions

7. Lost Impressions

Skywarp shifted back in the chair, transferring the monitor readout to his datapad. No sense anyone just happening by getting a chance to see it on the big screen. A precaution, one born of long training. Nothing had come easily to Skywarp. He had had to work at everything, and it took forever for some things to become habit. But his vorns working for the Inspector General had reinforced the need for habits like this. Self-protection as well as the protection (in this case equally balanced and not mutually exclusive) of those he investigated.

Megatron wanted Starscream…observed. It had been deliberate that he'd chosen one of Starscream's own Trine. Nor that the one he'd specifically summoned worked in IG. Megatron, for all his flaws, did think these things through. Knew the position it would put Skywarp in—his entire investigation predicated on a conflict of interest.

That told Skywarp as much about Megatron as he really needed to know.

But Megatron had left Skywarp to his own investigation, knowing that Skywarp would either sooner or later find this on his own (if he were competent) or if unfound, have ample chance to accuse Skywarp of anything from incompetence to deliberate cover-up. Orbital cycles ago, Skywarp would have considered Megatron beyond such a petty trap. Now…he knew better. Or at least had reason enough to keep his guard up.

But still.

Mission logs told more than the surface story and it took a certain kind of skill—almost cryptography—to be able to interpret them correctly. It, also, hadn't come easily to Skywarp—Starscream had always tested higher on intelligence than he had. Thundercracker had more patience. But Skywarp had built a career on single- (perhaps simple-)minded loyalty and a determination to do his Trine proud. To not be the slacker. The slow one. He was slow, but he made that mean something—thoroughness. And so he'd finally learned, if slowly, how to read the story under the story in mission logs, and piece together from around the little shards of militarized lingo and terminology, the real portrait of what it was like under Starscream's command.

Not as bad as he'd thought, which had surprised and then dismayed him—it felt like a betrayal to think that Starscream might have been a bad leader.

Complaints, as always (Skywarp had come to disregard most of these) about lack of resources, but…there was a war on. Perpetual shortages meant perpetual gripes, and he put only very little weight behind the accusations that the best supplies were hoarded by Starscream himself. Too common story. A few complaints that Starscream had not been…sufficiently enthusiastic in his mission to rescue Megatron. That had a bit more weight to it, simply by uniqueness. But enthusiasm was hard to quantify. And…Starscream could be abrasive. Couldn't he? Skywarp seemed to remember so much. But how much of that was even true anymore? How much was supposition? For all of Skywarp's training, he could not manage to read these lessons in the short, carefully worded messages that had been Starscream's primary method of communication. All he could divine in those was distance. And that distance could be for a hundred different reasons.

And, he reasoned, these complaints could also stem from a lack of understanding. Non command-grade ranks did not often understand the careful balance of complex factors that shaped mission objectives: logistics, defensive coordination, political will, deployable assets, strategic environment.

Or…maybe he was just making excuses. He logged the complaints, noting that one was made by the copter from the rescue raid, Blackout. He'd have to follow up on that. Had to.

He looked up, aware of optics on him. He blanked his datapad swiftly. "Yes?" Skywarp kept his voice controlled. He recognized him from the mission, too, the small grounder who had done the demolitions work. "Dead End, right?"

The grounder looked surprised that he remembered. "Yeah." He looked a little nervous. "Hey…uh, can I talk to you?"

"Aren't you talking to me right now?" The quip came before Skywarp could stop it. Normally it would put a mech at ease. Not this time. Dead End tightened up.

"Yeah. Ummm, about something kind of serious." Well, so there, Skywarp. Skywarp smiled.

"Sure." He laid the datapad aside. "You get in a lot of trouble for the raid?" He might as well follow up on this while he was at it. More puzzle pieces—about Starscream. About Megatron.

"No. Get kind of used to it, though. Do something unpopular, get punished. It's what started this whole thing, really."

Skywarp prompted him with a hand gesture.

"Yeah. Well. Starscream was held by the humans and we had to help rescue him, right? And a lot of us thought you know, too bad. No one'd come for us if it'd been us captured. And even though we'd evacuated the base because Starscream had put together that that's where the Autobots were going to attack, Megatron was still like all over him. And he sent us there. To fight."

Whoa. There was a lot more going on than Skywarp had time to follow. He made a mental note to track this down, too. Starscream had been captured? Curious that his Trine mate didn't tell him that little piece of information. It felt like…one of the pieces that explained his obsession with recovering Barricade. But that wasn't what brought Dead End here. "Right. So now?"

[***]

"They're gone!"

Skywarp blinked. "Who?"

"The drones!"

"The…drones."

"The ones I was assigned to!" Dead End wrung his hands, feeling, well, idiotic. What had he been thinking? He had served on a mission with Skywarp, and Skywarp hadn't gone out of his way to say mean things, and somehow, Dead End had interpreted that as…what? He was your friend? You could talk to him?

The black jet's head tilted—so like Starscream's but…not. Somehow just a tiny bit more approachable—okay, less unapproachable—than the Air Commander. And though Skywarp wasn't saying anything, he was listening. Not insulting. Probably saving up the insults, but still…he was listening.

"As a punishment. For going AWOL for the mission, you know? Blackout got Tac Dat coding and I got assigned to a new pod of dronelings. Supposed to be embarrassing job, you know, because the drones are kind of stupid and ask really dumb questions. But I didn't mind." He cut his vocalizer suddenly, aware that he was babbling.

Skywarp simply nodded. "Go on."

Go on? As in…a mech wanted him to talk? Dead End suspected a trick. But still…this was important. All those drones! Think of them, and not what a fool you may be making of your sorry self, he thought. "I-I was assigned to this pod of dronelings and I went this solar like I thought I was supposed to but they were gone. And…," He looked up, expecting some mockery or derision from the Seeker. Dronelings. Idiocy. No…nothing. The face was smooth, impassive, unreadable. He froze.

"Maybe you read your roster wrong?" Not a trace of mockery in the voice. As if misreading duty rosters was no big deal.

"I didn't. I swear. And...," Dead End couldn't stop himself from looking around nervously. "And when I checked my back rosters, they'd been," his voice crackled, a little hysterically, "altered!"

"Altered. You have evidence?" Again, no mockery. Nothing. Skywarp's calm acceptance of Dead End's statements scared the smaller mech more than he cared to admit.

"Yeah. I, uh, I do backups every night." He reached into his storage, and handed over a few of the small flat disks that stored short term memory. Every mech used them before a big battle, as a backup in case of cortex trauma. It seemed a little…extreme to Skywarp to see them used…apparently daily. But.

The black jet picked one up and reached for a memory reader. He inserted the disk and ran it through until he accessed the duty roster for that solar. He gave a noncommittal backchannelling grunt, popped the disk, and inserted a new one. Even though Dead End knew what he would find, he couldn't help but feel a swell of paranoia. Frag, he was turning into Breakdown.

Skywarp flipped out the last disk. The face was still neutral, bland. "You say they disappeared. And you were assigned to other duties."

Dead End nodded. "And the dronelings don't like it. Once they've bonded to a mech, they kind of get attached and can get really confused and upset if you take them away."

A nod. Then a tilt of the head, as if Skywarp were trying to look through his own shoulder. "And you want me to…?"

Dead End faltered. He hadn't thought this far. He just thought it should be reported to someone who had the power to do…something. And Skywarp had been the only name that popped into his processing tier. Mostly, he just wanted to hear he wasn't crazy. "Nothing," he muttered, snatching at the pile of memory disks. "Sorry to waste your time."


	8. Refractions

A/N: Let's check in with the Autobots! Happy Halloween, everyone!

8. Refractions

Flareup slumped in the corner by the door. Feeling useless and used simultaneously. Knowing it was all her fault. Her hands were gummy with lubricants and coolants and other fluids she'd had to work through to attach the emergency hose clamps—the limit of her repair training—and the enamel of her digits was scraped and scarred, bearing the scent of cut lines and fluids scorched by sparking circuits. She was filthy and she smelled but otherwise…she was fine. As if Vortex had missed her on purpose. In some sick joke, or backhand courtesy. Keeping her safe and whole so she could watch him destroy what she had thought possible.

She'd thought…he could be trusted. That they'd had a mutual enemy, a mutual bond. And that he'd seen her—seen something in her that even her own side couldn't see. Is that why he spared her? Or is that why he betrayed her—a lesson in what she would have become?

She was wrong, and others had gotten hurt. So much for her naïve trust. She could practically hear Ironhide sneering. About how he'd told her all along. About how naivete got mechs fragged. About how pretty ideals got so ugly when they ran into reality. She could hear his voice, his delivery. See his face. And she would deserve it. Maybe she had fallen for an act of Barricade's. But his warning at Tunguska had been true. Without that, they all would have died, all of the Autobots. Surely….

Flareup gave up. She was tired of running. Physically and mentally—tired of her cortex racing over the same ground. She sat by herself in the corner of the medbay, watching the bustle around her. Sideswipe had taken a flechette through the shoulder, his left arm sparking and swinging dead. Prowl's foot had been blown off, the white armor rippled and blasted away from his shins, the metal components underneath blackened and firing fitfully, half a plate of connective cilia waving in agitated pain. He sat on a repair frame, truncated limb dangling, watching the bustle of the medbay, almost as if he wasn't in pain—he was that shut off, cut off from his own sensors. Or, Flareup thought, that much more dedicated to his duties. He was surveying the damage, calculating how long it would take them to reach levels of recovery, how long before they'd be able to fight off a Decepticon assault.

All her fault.

Trusted…too much.

A shadow fell over her. She knew without looking up, as though her senses had finally honed. Too late. "Ironhide," she said, her two-colored optics fixed on her hands. She waited. It was the least she could do: useless to help the injured, powerless to change anything—she could take the blame she richly deserved.

"You look tired," he said. He dropped onto one knee, a warrior's posture, always ready to spring into action. Never entirely at ease.

"I deserve to be."

A sardonic snort. "Blaming yourself because a 'con acted like a 'con?"

"It's not funny," she said, tightly.

The half smile faded. "Yeah, I know. Believe me, Flareup . If anyone can understand what that kind of betrayal feels like, it's me." Flareup could see the pain of memory on his optics. She felt a little ashamed. He'd been through worse. He'd been one of them.

"I know, and you tried to tell me."

"Yeah, I did." A flash of a smile, that died on its own. "You're not the only one who doesn't listen." His optics drifted to where Optimus stood.

"I listened," Flareup said. "I just…didn't understand."

Ironhide turned back to her, his blue optics a little off. "Not your fault. And you were right. If Barricade hadn't warned us at Tunguska, we'd all be slagged." He traced a line on the concrete floor between them, as if tallying a point. "The thing is, one decent act—and maybe it was that—doesn't change the balance."

"Yes," Flareup said. "But it's a start. And I'd thought Vortex…." Her old argument suddenly sounded thin and feeble. "I hate this planet," she said, her voice thin. She was an Autobot. Autobots did not hate. But this planet, this…place, was taking everything she'd ever believed in and destroying it, methodically.

"The planet's not the problem," Ironhide said. He glanced around, suddenly, almost nervous, lest anyone had overheard him. "We used to…," he hesitated again, looking around. "We, you know, them, back before the war, had this part of military training. Crucible, it was called. Supposed to show how well you could process and perform under stress. In a nice quiet room, test-taking, you know, anyone could access the right stuff, get the right answers. But when someone's shooting at you, yelling at you, or you're in pain…a little harder to do, right?" She got the feeling there was a lot he was leaving out.

He paused. This was the most he'd ever said to Flareup. And the most openly he'd ever talked about his past. He shifted, uncomfortable. "I tried, you know, when I came over, to do something like that for the Autobots. Because these New Army recruits…unlike us, they hadn't been made for combat, you know? Philosophers, playboys, that sort of thing. They needed to know how tough it was before it was for real. And." Another flick of the optics to where Optimus stood by the door, looking anxiously into the falling night. Looking, Flareup realized, toward the base hospital, where the humans were. It bothered her, and she wasn't quite sure why.

"And?" she prompted. Her former refugee work voice came back to her. Soothing, nonjudgmental. Ironhide twitched, as if it were the first time he'd ever heard anyone speak to him that way.

"And." A bark of laughter. "That was how I first met Optimus Prime. When they were deciding what charges to bring against me."

Oh. Flareup could see that. "You were trying to help." Knowing what he knew, trying to bring his knowledge, bring something to his new side, almost as an offering of peace. A blood-price for his past.

"Yeah. Went just about as well as every other slaggin' time I tried to help." Bitterness, directed at himself this time. "Kind of a sign, right? When your first meeting with your new commander, you're brought up on charges?"

Flareup didn't know what to say. Awkwardly, she murmured, "I wonder what they'll do to me."

Ironhide looked up, his optics snapping back from his reverie. "You? Oh. Prowl." He shrugged. "Nothing. They find a way to excuse the worst of you. Like it doesn't exist." He rolled his weight onto one hip, dropping, for the first time Flareup had ever seen, out of his warrior's kneel. "It works for a while," he added, his voice strangely distant. "Because, you know, you want to believe it's true. That it's not you. Not who you are. And…you don't even have to do it yourself. They just rush in and make excuses for you."

Flareup's turn to smile bitterly. "I know that now."

"The part that gets me, the part I can't get because of, you know, what I am, is the whole Autobot thing. How we can say what we say, then go do what we do." He studied his battered hands. "Frag. I'm just an old warrior. A 'con, at that. I'm not built to puzzle that stuff out. So I just…follow orders and trust that they come from the right place."

"From the place that refuses to acknowledge we have a dark side?" The question escaped Flareup's vocalizer before she could think. Her optics flew wide.

Ironhide caught the danger in the question as easily as if she'd thrown a weapon at him. "It's not that easy to acknowledge in yourself, either." True, she thought. "Problem is…I don't know how much I trust that place anymore."

"Optimus?" Despite her efforts, her voice came out as a squeak.

A scrape as Ironhide shifted against the floor, leaning in, tacitly acknowledging guilt, betrayal, discomfort in his words. "He's never listened to me, not really. Not about anything beyond what 'cons would do. An inside source. I fooled myself into thinking that I was valuable. I'm not. But…I can see some things pretty clearly. I can see what you've been through—what happened to you. I know what that's like, though…I obviously got parts of that wrong. But I look at Optimus, our leader and you know what I see? I see him selling us out. Look at us," he gestured around the repair hangar. "Living on the humans' sufferance. On what they allow us to have. Where we won't be a bother. It's a prison, Flareup. I tell you: prison. And what's Optimus doing? Instead of making plans for us to leave, plans for us to continue the war…he's trying to get our old guards back."

Flareup hadn't thought of it like that; hadn't thought of the NEST teams like that.

"Things have changed. We can't go back." He scrubbed a hand over his face, the metal ringing. "Frag. Stupid slogans. Meaningless, really. And it's probably all in my cortex—that's what they told me. Same as they—and I—tried to tell you." Mute apology. Flareup nodded. It wasn't his fault. He'd spent how many megacycles trying to fit in. As had she. "But you watch, Flareup. You watch and you let me know, because I don't…I don't even trust myself anymore. You watch Optimus and let me know where his spark lies. Us…or the humans."


	9. Fallen Bodies

A/N Some pieces hopefully starting to come together…. There's a strangely soft spot in my head for Flatline. Creepy experimenter? Alt mode's a hearse? Why, yes please!

Also: as per usual, I suck at responding to reviews—if you have a question, ask it and I promise I will respond!

9. Fallen Bodies

Flatline winced at the rattling crash as the hum of his latest device cycled down and the dronelings, drained of their spark energy, collapsed, noisily, to the floor. This was the last set from this batch. He hated the last set. All the mess. All the noise. Prior sets would clear the mess, pick up the empty, dead—if you must call them that, if you think that they had ever truly been alive—bodies of their pod-mates, and carry them obediently over to the recycling processor. Then they would stand in precisely the same place as their pod-mates, their optics placid and obedient and tracking Flatline for any last directives, until he activated the switch and they, too, joined the ranks of the fallen.

The Fallen. He was here, too, in the case over there. Well, the essential components. The spark chamber and the cortex. Limbs...unnecessary, as far as Flatline was concerned. Everything beyond those essentials had been stripped away, clean connections, no waste, no extraneous junk.

Flatline despised waste. Conservation of resources, of course a Decepticon byword. Especially in science. Everything that could get recycled and repurposed from the Fallen's remains had been. Only what Flatline needed was here. As it should be.

Even this technology was repurposed. It had split existing sparks—creating the Arcees, creating Skystalkers. It had not worked as well at energizing the replica Allspark, and even though Flatline hadn't yet figured out that failure, knowledge he had learned from that experience helped shape this latest creation—a device to drain and store spark energy. Re-animating the Fallen...could be done. It was simply a variant on the process Scalpel had used to resurrect Megatron. Megatron's spark had been feeble, nearly extinguished, and had merely required a boost.

This spark was extinguished, the only read a hollow resonance on a cis frequency, the chamber cracked and empty, shattered by the power of the Matrix of the Primes. It would have to be filled first, and then slowly, carefully tuned to the resonance of the Fallen. Tedious, but doable. Would it stand against that Matrix again? Not his concern. Not in his given parameters.

Flatline shifted another empty frame. They were heavier than they looked, the drones, as though the loss of the spark sucked some lightness from them, making them limp, dead weight. He wished, briefly, he had been given an assistant, then just as quickly realized he was glad he had not. An assistant, like extraneous limbs, would be clutter. Would get in the way. Would require explanations. Would ask too many questions.

Flatline realized that a lot of mechs would have...sentimental objections to this part of his work. He had always, he paused, frowning as a limp droneling form tried to slip from his grasp, he had always run up against these nonsensical objections. As if emotions—fleeting, unreliable—had any validity. How could emotions have any credibility at all, when they were as soon forgotten as explained? Emotions faded, and regret always seeped in to where emotions had been. But science, logic, knowledge? No regret, no fading. Permanence.

He dumped the droneling's frame into the hopper, turning back to the pad, his optics catching a blinking light of a message on his console. He sighed. Interruptions. He had no choice: he keyed the console. Predictable: a request—no, demand for an update from Megatron. Yes, Flatline thought, dryly. Because science can be demanded. It can be ordered to perform like a dancer. Like a soldier. It showed...how limited Megatron's understanding truly was.

Flatline closed the message. He would get back when he had something to update.

He paused, checking the reading in the power chamber, a cis-reader that recorded the level of spark energy. Almost, almost at the power level that the Fallen had run. It would still need to be tuned, of course. But he would have progress, soon enough.

"Flatline." The voice cut over his comm.

"Acknowledged," Flatline replied, frowning. He deliberately omitted any honorific. Impatience was not rewarded.

"I requested an update." Megatron's voice was amused...for now. But there was a dark threat underneath it, like a weapon under a cloth.

Flatline did not worry himself: Megatron needed him. If anyone on the Nemesis had protection from his rages, it was the researcher. "I have nothing to update. Yet."

"Perhaps you need some motivation." Less veiled.

"Perhaps I need time to process data," he retorted. He held emotion in low regard, but even so he allowed himself a taste of enjoyment at Megatron's discomfiture. He did not respect that in Megatron—a creature of altogether too much emotion.

"I expect results," Megatron said, darkly.

Flatline could picture him in his command chair, leaning forward over the comm, as if he could force compliance. Science worked at its own timeline. Megatron's weaknesses, laid open before Flatline. If he only knew... Flatline had studied his failures well enough to be able to analyze, with a researcher's gaze, flaws and weaknesses in any system. Megatron was no exception. And his flaws loomed large. He lets jealousy, rage rule him. He does not know how to do anything other than attack. Even now, attack. His plans for the Fallen's resurrection, his attempt to force results from Flatline: attack. In a way he's as mindless as these drones, Flatline thought, bending to scoop up the last two empty frames. Singleminded, obedient. But while they obey an outside voice, he obeys the whims of his emotions. In a way, the drones are, at least, steadier, more stable.

"You shall have your results," he said, blandly. Behind him, the machine that kept the Fallen's cortex online hummed and clicked.

"I want his power, do you hear me? I want his power, utterly, entirely under my control." Yes. Power. But Megatron saw it only as a weapon, a power to destroy. No power to create. No power to do what science did, the only thing that Flatline held as holy—to create. To make something new. To solve a problem, fill a gap. It was not Flatline's place to judge. He solved problems. He filled gaps. What happened as a result from that was none of his concern.

When it came to power, Flatline had more. He looked over at the remains of the Fallen, at the spark energy chamber, that buzzed with the collected energy of two batches of drones. He had all the power here. Literally. Metaphorically. "You shall have results," he said, masking his rebuke in submission, "and I shall not interrupt you until you have something worthy of your time." He cut the comm.


	10. Awake

10. Awake

Starscream stood over the repair cradle, letting the hums and clicks and soft beeps of repair bay occupy him, try to colonize his thoughts. He did not want to consider what he had done, or why. Most of all he did not want to consider what was to come. For any of them.

What has he done? He has defied Megatron. For Barricade. For the little droneling he had been so many megacycles ago. For who Starscream himself had been back then. For the wasted potential. For the life he had saved. The only time, the last time he felt outside himself. The war took him over after that. Made it dangerous to care. Made him vulnerable. Almost as if the war had a vendetta against him to strip away anything he cared about, anything outside himself until that was all he knew, all he could care about. Not even his Trine. Even they had fallen by the wayside. Even himself. Everything had whittled, withered away, dry husks shed, blasted off by ambition, by the desire to succeed, to make himself proud...when he no longer had a self left capable of feeling anything.

But this was too much of a coincidence, the echo too loud. Barricade, once again needing rescue. Needing to be saved. Wasted potential again this time, but not merely as a warrior. As an ally. As a friend. As a reminder that he was once, ONCE, altruistic. He once believed fervently, vividly, in his ideals.

"Barricade," he murmured. The frame on the table stiffened almost imperceptibly. "I regret that you are in such pain right now." A blink of the upper optic shutters. Starscream had insisted Barricade be rebuilt to his former specifications, in some thin hope that it would at least be...familiar. He wished he knew Barricade better...in what he had become. He would have authorized...anything in rebuild. Aerial? Yes. Heavy armor? Weapons? Anything. If only he knew.

The last of the armor had yet to be put on, and after that, he'd still have to go through enameling and tempering. But the armor was the worst of it—the agony of the naked sensor cilia in the open air, the white pain as they seared through metal, forging their connections. Starscream had thought, somehow, foolishly, that if he was here for that, he might be able to comfort him. Be there with him. Endure with him. Foolishness. But a sort of foolishness he had not felt in ages. "I do not regret," he added, soflty, "I do not regret bringing you back." I do not regret what this has cost me in Megatron's estimation. I do not regret what it has cost me in Skywarp's mysterious investigation. I only regret that it took me this long to find...anything worth risking for.

[***]

Barricade was glad his vocalizer hadn't been onlined yet because he knew he'd just use it to whine or humiliate himself with other pathetic noises. Oh Primus he was so sick of being pathetic. Being helpless. Useless. Failure. Again. Dead, more than halfway.

His optics flicked to where Starscream leaned over him, flicked away. Why Starscream? What had happened? The last thing he remembered, he was dying, his entire sensornet charring to black agony around him, and he was reaching for that hard blackness, embracing his final end, where it would finally be over. No more fucking up. No more failing. No more letting anyone down. No more spending off-shifts curled up by himself trying to figure out what was wrong with him, what he didn't know, what he could actually fix. He'd known all along that the problem was...him. And in those final instants, he had not resisted death, had been...so willing to let go of his history, his past, his...undefinable everything that made him wrong. Made everyone hate him. Made him into such a victim.

Frag, he wished he could fix himself. They could repair his body: nothing could repair his fouled up cortex. There'd always be something wrong with him.

His body went rigid as the repairbots lay the first of the armor casings over the sensor cilia of his new fingers. His optics flew to Starscream's, studying for any sign of gloating, enjoying his pain. Oh, yes, Starscream, he thought. This is the payback from Flareup, from the hangar, isn't it? He refused to give Starscream anything worth seeing, shutting his optics tightly.

He heard Starscream's voice, rippling through his oversensitized audio. He couldn't distinguish the words, the audio blurred and indistinct. Shut up, he thought. Don't want to hear you gloating. Don't want to hear you rub it in how you saved me, yet again. How useless I am. How without you I'd be dead. Don't want to hear it.

He heard the distinct clicking chitter of repair bots, and felt them scramble over him, somehow managing to place their small pincer-like feet away from the naked plates of sensor cilia. Fast, agile and somehow careful not to hurt. He felt the weight of one on his throat, and then heard the unmistakable crackle of his vocalizer.

He turned his head, slightly, his dull optics focussing on the jet. "What," he croaked. Probably wanted to be thanked. Probably thought that rescuing Barricade was a heroic deed. Frag. I didn't pay you back last time, Barricade thought. With what coin could I possibly pay you back for a second?

Starscream hesitated, pitching his voice lower, somehow picking up that Barricade's audio was over-amped. "I am sorry we did not arrive sooner. In time to spare you...this."

"Should've let me die," Barricade breathed, wincing as another talon was attached to its sensor cilia.

"I could not. I am sorry. That is my weakness that is being visited upon you."

Barricade struggled to get his optics to focus on the jet, his processor whirling. "You think I owe you for this?" he said, weakly, his optic shutters gritting together against another surge of pain as the repairbots laid on another plate. "You think you can use this against me.'

"No." Starscream trailed a talon down the already installed armor. Barricade shivered at the light touch. "Like you, I was trying to set something right that I did not even know how it got broken." He paused. "Does it hurt excessively? I can ask them to delay installation."

Barricade narrowed his optics, feeling his ventilation kick on to cool a processor already strained by the backlog of pain/damage/warning alerts. What would be the point in delay? Have to go through all of this again. And would he have the strength to assent, to say, yes I am ready for that agony now? (And have that proved a lie?) "No," he said, flatly. "Wasted your effort," he added. Determined not to go down. Not to give in. To fight against…everyone.

Starscream shook his head. "I have risked everything for some motivation I cannot articulate, beyond that, without it I cannot feel…whole."

"You put me through this to assuage your compunctions." Barricade stiffened as the repair bots laid the last of the forearm armor over him, shutting the armor locks with deft little claws.

"In a manner, as have you with the cyclebot." The wings, folded against his shoulders, shifted uncomfortably. "But this is not about retribution, Barricade. It is about…setting things right."

Right. Like either of us know anything about how to do that. "I went too far with Flareup," he said, begrudgingly.

"And you went too far for her again." A quirk of one side of the mouthplating. Not quite a smile. As if it would have been starkly inappropriate. "And to be honest, it was that push, your push at my boundaries that made me realize," he voice dropped, ashamed, "that I still had them."


	11. Shifting Weight

A/N In my headcanon, I've borrowed the Crisis Intervention Accords to explain the breakup of the gestalts—why we see, for example, Brawl in the first movie, but none of the other Combaticons. Megatron, of course, does not see the need any longer to abide by such a useless rule. If you want a hint as to Vortex's real issue, check the story 'Vetus' in the story collection 'Echoes'.

11. Shifting Weight

Vortex stiffened in outrage as the Constructicons swept by the open door of the long untouched hangar. They didn't even see him, didn't even deign to look inside the maw of the doorway. Consciously puffing themselves up even when no one's looking, he thought. Self-important. Special. The only gestalt to re-unite. Against all of the Accords, which had ordered the break-up of all of the gestalts, they had been ordered together, back into service. Chosen by Megatron himself, above all the others. Not that…not that the Combaticons were even an issue. Not anymore.

It wasn't their fault, Vortex told himself. Your fault. You screwed up. You want to get upset about why them and not your old unit? Try the word…'Vortex'. You have no right to let any of your anger spill out onto anyone else.

Except that, once again, you couldn't stop yourself. Can't control your anger. Convinced yourself time and again that what you did made perfect sense. Served the team. Meant loyalty. Onslaught had been right.

How many times were you proven wrong about that, Vortex? Almost a voice in his cortex by now: Onslaught's voice. A ghost's voice. Yeah. Wrong. Probably wrong to have shot up the humans. It felt right but…your feelings have led you astray before.

This did not improve his mood.

"Don't let it bother you," Blackout said. The two of them, large rotaries, had been magically assigned to loadshifting. Tedious work that tugged at servos, and wore through energon almost as fast as combat. They were not suited to loadshifting—their hands too big, their frames too cumbersome. That was, of course, the point. They both knew they were being punished. It was so obviously a punishment assignment: Move these crates from this side of the ware-hangar to the other side. Yeah, that's military necessity. Blackout hated the waste, but knew that the best course was to shut up, keep his head down and get it over with. He could survive this. Frag. He'd survived worse. He'd clawed his way back from the ocean. A few cycles of discomfort? Nothing.

Vortex frowned, irritated. "You don't even know," he said. Blackout had never been a gestalt member. He didn't know. He had no right to offer sympathy.

Blackout shrugged, as he dropped another crate into position and stood up. The ware-hangar was so old that thick dust skirled around their ankles as they moved, drifted in the air, settled into their joints. He felt it itch in his vent-filter. "Gestalts. I guess you miss being part of a team." Team. Never really worked out for Blackout. Still, he could understand the urge. His processor flashed back to Tunguska: Barricade laying down impossibly precise covering fire as Blackout loaded. Synchrony. Trust. Teamwork. Weird to think one of his better combat moments came with Barricade. He wasn't used to anyone getting his six before.

Vortex swore, turning to pick up another crate. Right. If that's all it was. That longing, almost like a physical pull, like a winch attached to some place above his spark chamber and exerting an almost constant tension; that was bad enough. He had on top of it…the knowledge of what he'd done. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't ever come together. His fault. His fault. No one else's.

The conversation lagged. They shifted crates in silence for a handful of decakliks. Vortex watched Blackout's back. Feeling the failure stretch between them. Something else you can't ever get right, Vortex. "This doesn't bother you?" he blurted, finally.

"This? Punishment, you mean?" Blackout shrugged. "It's just payment, like a fine. If what you want to do is worth it, you pay it. No sense whining about it."

"Was it worth doing?" It was to Vortex, in a weird way he was still uncomfortable with owning. He'd felt like part of a team. Needed. Trusted. He'd even pushed to take the humans in a burst of camaraderie driven enthusiasm. Insanity, Onslaught's voice echoed dimly in his processor. Always took things too far. Trailing disaster in your wash.

Blackout turned to look at him, his red optics irising in with concentration. Trying to read Vortex. "You asking me? It was a mission. We had a clear objective, we went in, we won. How often does that happen for us anymore?" Something unutterably bitter in his voice. His rotors flared. "Sorry. Yeah. It was worth it. We…saved someone." It felt weird. The same weird, uncomfortable swell he'd felt in the repair bay, looking at Barricade in the regen-tank. He'd brought back casualties from a battlefield before, but he'd never gone in solely to find one. It felt…strange and significant to come back with more than a scattered bit of armor. To have gone…looking to rescue. It was as if his world were reordering itself.

Vortex paused before picking up another crate. "It occur to you—what you just said, you know—it was a clean mission. Why that is?" He knew his speech was coming across choppy, telegraphic. Almost because he didn't really want to think what he was thinking—much less in front of a witness.

Blackout considered. "Yeah. I know." Starscream's mission, start to finish. Had they all underestimated him? Had it taken Megatron's return to show them what they'd not seen in Starscream's leadership? They had argued, they had fought, and Starscream was an insufferable narcissist, but, looking back they had blazed a trail of victory across the stars. Not all victories, but enough. More than enough. And Blackout had not seen it. Blackout had been too focused on one mech—Megatron—and not the larger picture.

Vortex sheered away from that topic of conversation. Too dangerous to even think. "You done after this?"

Blackout snorted. "No. Perils of rank. I get to transfer the tactical data into scans." One of the most tedious jobs in the service. Made Passive Satellite seem almost easy—at least then the challenge was simply that you had to stay awake. TacDat meant you had to log every detail, every shift in about 250 different factors almost frame-by-frame, klik-by-klik.

Vortex winced. Blackout shrugged. "Payment." He scooped up another crate. They were almost done, the last row being slowly eaten by their steady lugging.

"Guess I got lucky," Vortex said, quietly. He was done after this. Back to his usual details. Back where he could see the Constructicons parade around in their own self-important cloud, insistent, niggling reminders of his own past. Even in failure, even after defeat, they had more than he did.

"Sometimes, it's better to run below radar." Blackout's voice was dark. He'd worked so hard to gain respect. Make a name. What did it get him? It hadn't saved him from anything. It had made him, if anything, a bigger target, for Autobot and Decepticon alike.

"Better to be part of something bigger than you are," Vortex countered. "I mean, isn't that what we all thought? Why any of us joined?"

"Some of us didn't join," Blackout said. "Some were made into it and had no choice."

Vortex stopped, glaring at him. What the frag was that supposed to mean?

"Well, then you didn't have anything to lose, did you?" Vortex snapped, dropping the last box in position with harsh finality.


	12. Irreparable Damage

12. _Irreparable Damage_

Ratchet bent over , watching Flareup as she glossed the machining tool over Prowl's replacement foot. The limb was still bare-metal and naked looking. It needed to have the fit refined before the final enameling process. Prowl wasn't vain; he didn't mind. He was watching the process with keen interest. Ratchet could practically feel Flareup's concentration, her optics focused intently on the movements of the small sanding head over the rounded edge of the foot plate. "If this doesn't work," she asked, quietly, "we have to take the whole thing apart?"

"Yes," Ratchet said. "But we'll have the wear pattern to guide us then what needs to be planed down and adjusted." She was being too hard on herself. Precision was essential, but, well, it wasn't a mark of failure to misplane.

Flareup looked unhappy. "But that means that it'll hurt." Another thing she did wrong. Got wrong. Why can't I get anything right? Even doing repairs, she was causing damage. She looked at the stark silver lines of sanded metal the rotary sander had made in the too-tight plates.

Prowl said, "It does not hurt excessively."

"If I did it right the first time," Flareup muttered, "It wouldn't hurt at all." Hurting Prowl, again, no less. How was this any better than when she'd attacked him? Because she was trying to help? She'd been trying to help before. Just...Starscream. Barricade. Did every help hurt another?

"Not true," Ratchet said. "Standardized parts require custom adjustment depending on load, distribution, wear, etc." He didn't want Flareup to get any more down on herself than she already was. She'd been through a lot, and he could entirely understand her objections to combat. The last thing he wanted was for her to give up this new direction. Not just for her own well-being, but, honestly, for himself. He'd been carrying this burden too long by himself. One day, he might die—any of them could—and…who would be left to carry on?

Just because one didn't have it in him or her-self to destroy did not make them useless. Did not make them...lesser. He'd fought that fight within himself. And he wasn't afraid of fighting. He just knew what it cost him. He saw that struggle too in Flareup. That she was less of a soldier because she didn't enjoy it. Madness. Ratchet was more concerned for the ones who did enjoy it—enjoyed it too much, in fact. Prowl, Flareup, though, he understood.

"I know you're right," she said, her shoulders slumping. "It's just...I feel like I'm not doing anything right anymore. Did you ever have that?"

Prowl studied her. "A proper statistical analysis would most likely indicate a much higher success rate than you give yourself."

Yes, Ratchet thought, but some failures outweigh victories. Still, Prowl meant well by his comment, was trying to help, even though emotion was terra entirely incognita for him. "You're learning," he added. "Give yourself a break. Trust your instincts." He'd had his own fight, ages ago, about this. Whether merely patching mechs up to send them right back into the grinder of war was any service at all, whether he was just simply feeding the machine in his own way, pretending to conscience.

Flareup snorted bitterly. "My instincts. Yes, those have just been marvelously useful guides."

"You told us to trust Barricade about the nuke. Your instincts told us true."

"And you saved all of those humans brought by Vortex. If you hadn't approached, we would have opened fire." Ratchet said. Common sense. Don't lose sight of it, Flareup. We need you. Earth was fascinating, but it was nothing, to him, without his fellow Autobots. It hurt, though he had no right to feel it, that her vision of peace had been besmirched.

"Vortex," she retorted, laying the machining tool on the work bench, and picking up the small spray hose, working the high pressure water into the joint to blast off any fine metallic dust. She'd trusted him. And he'd...opened fire. On her kind. Prowl's missing foot—Vortex's attack, but her fault. As much as if she'd done it herself. And saving humans who had...tortured one of her own... If what Barricade had done to her wasn't right, why was it okay if it was a human doing it? "And I...helped Starscream." An apologetic look up at Prowl. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

Prowl shifted, uncomfortably. There was no way he could wrap his cortex around what had driven her to attack him, to aid the Decepticon not only in his escape but in his mission. But Flareup was an Autobot, and the repairs were minor. There was no point, no logic, in holding some sort of grudge against her. Better to concentrate on managing the fallout of her actions. It was hardly the first time Prowl had run into situations that made no sense to him. He'd learned to factor them in as an unpredictable element, a performance isotope with unstable properties. "It is done." He realized by the sudden tensing of her faceplates that that was somehow the wrong thing to say.

"Yeah," she said, quietly. "That's the thing."

"We all make mistakes, Flareup," Ratchet said, shooting a dark look at Prowl. Prowl shrugged one shoulder, admitting a kind of defeat. He knew his weaknesses, as well.

"I'm not sure it was," she said, her mismatched optics flickering. "I honestly can't say that I'd do it differently. Especially now. With what they did to him." Which of course was what bothered her. She regretted a lot of things, but...the fact that the humans had used one of her own kind as a test subject...bothered her. Barricade was dead. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. The Barricade part of it. Still an unsorted, tense, wriggling mass in her cortex. But no one should die that way. Not even an enemy. Not at the hands of an ally. There had to be rules.

"The weapons test Vortex told you about?" Prowl leaned forward, on surer ground.

"Yes. And I can't forgive Vortex—or myself for my part in it—but if they have a weapon, that they tested against one of our own kind...it changes things."

Prowl tilted back, unable to figure how to turn the conversation back to the weapon. She wanted something he didn't know how to give."They will still need us."

"What will happen when they don't, though?"

"We shall depart. We respect the rights of sentient cultures."

"Do we?" She put down the pressure washing tool and picked up a small voltmeter to test the charge running down the signal wires. Ratchet had told her to do that always, always, as one last check to make sure nothing got damaged, either by the machining or the cleaning up. She could follow instructions. She could get this much right. "They don't want us here. The Russians didn't. The Americans don't. Why are we still here, then?"

"They need us," Prowl reiterated. "Whether they wish to acknowledge it or not."

"Well, what does that do about their rights, though? If they have a right to freedom, they have it, and we can't abridge that just because we think we know better."

"They are a young species," Prowl said, confident. Optimus's statement. Truth.

"That's what we say. That's what we always say, though isn't it? How do we know we aren't doing more harm than good? We tell ourselves that it's better to do this than to let them be taken over. And maybe it is, but does that mean it's a good thing just because it's not the most morally repugnant thing? Is good just…not evil or is it something more?"

"You want to test that hypothesis?" Prowl tilted his head. Good, evil? Moral equivalencies. More factors he could simply account for as randomizers. It would be an interesting experiment. It would be hard to set up—how would you set up a control set for that? His processor skirled off into speculations.

"No! Of course not. I just...don't know why we seem to presume we're always right all the time."

"Because we are." Because Optimus says so. The Prime is always right. Though…how many recent technological developments had come from contact with their kind?

Ratchet frowned. "We aren't right all the time, Flareup. The best we can do is try." And sometimes, best not to ask questions. Best not to remember. He remembered…before the war. Another Starscream. Another Optimus.

"And what happens when we fail?"

Ratchet shrugged. "We forgive each other." We try to. And then, we try to forgive ourselves.

You're skipping a step, Flareup thought, irritably. When you let the other person atone. When you let them figure out why they did what they did. She still didn't know. She wished someone would help her. All the sympathy in the world didn't help her do that. All the easy forgiveness didn't help her figure it out. "Yeah," she said, quietly. She unbent her axle, straightening up. "Well," she said, aware herself of the dual meaning, "That's the best I can do."

"It's plenty good," Ratchet said.

"What about the humans?" Flareup asked. "Do we forgive them, too? Even if they didn't ask?" Even if they don't deserve it?

"Our priority is to protect this planet," Prowl said, calmly, rotating his new ankle servo to work the oil through the mechanisms. "That includes the sentient species."

So simple. Yes/No. Black and white, just like his armor. Why couldn't she see the world like that anymore? Was it the optic? Was that what was wrong? She wondered, abjectly, if there was any way to repair what was wrong with her. "Who will protect us when they turn on us?"

"We'll pull back."

Like that made perfect sense. Flareup shifted, trying to busy herself tidying the tools on the tray. Creating order, neatness, something she could understand. She couldn't see the world in Prowl's stark black and white. She was beginning to see, maybe, glimpses of light in the darkness, and shadows, here in the light of the Autobots. She missed that kind of simple purity with a longing she couldn't put into words.

"We have protocols to guide us," Ratchet said. "But you're right, Flareup. The humans have rights to their own self-determination. It's just that, well, you've heard Optimus. They're young, and at an awkward phase."

"We've been on systems with sentient life before," she countered, tentatively, hoping her voice didn't sound snappish.

"Yes, but they were either...," Ratchet paused, optics aiming at the ceiling of the hangar, searching for words. He restarted. "They were at a stage in their development where they recognized the need for our protection."

"These humans are not," Prowl said. "It is...bothersome." Bad enough the illogic of Cybertronian emotion. The behavior of the humans—stubborn to the point of self-defeat—completely defied any sort of sense. "But Optimus knows what's best."

"Does he?" Flareup felt a burst of anxiety. It was the seeds of what Ironhide had said germinating in her own doubts. "Can he know what's best when he doesn't even see his team falling apart in front of him?"

"We're not falling apart," Prowl said. "We are well within operational efficiency. Even now." He didn't seem to notice how the last qualification struck into Flareup's face.

"The humans will come around again, you'll see," Ratchet said. Misreading her. Deliberately? Probably. Could no one see the cracks except her? Could no one else see how Ironhide, and now she, had been marginalized, talked over, ignored, when they said or did something unacceptable? Did they really think that made it go away?

"Why not now? They don't want us here. Why are we even here?" She threw her hand to take in the repair hangar, the island. "We have the Matrix. There is no Allspark. There's nothing left for us here." Nothing but breaking ourselves against our ideals.


	13. TacDat

13. TacDat

_Nemesis, Tactical Data_

Blackout thought TacDat would be painfully tedious, but he hadn't thought it would be quite this miserable. He'd run into Starscream, who had been…his usual charming self, but upset enough to mutter something aloud about Megatron threatening to withhold regen from Barricade. That was more than a little unsettling. Blackout couldn't help but feel betrayed. Megatron…? Starscream had planted the seed earlier that Megatron had changed. And Blackout had been unable to defend Megatron then. And the seed was...inexorably taking root, no matter how hard Blackout tore at its shoots.

And now…? He was not even sure. All he knew was that he did not want to have these kinds of thoughts running in his processing. And that the tedium of TacDat was doing nothing to block it out.

He moved the scans forward another klik, watching how the locator blips for each of the mechs involved in the defense of the Solar Harvester shift around the topographic scan. One by one he called up each blip, logging its altitude, calculating its speed and vector, recording its weapons weight and rate of fire. The data, once he had completed the scan of the battle, could be used to analyze the strategies employed, but also be manipulated to play out different tactical scenarios. Important work, just deadly, deadly dull.

Between his depressing reflections and the tedious occupation of the scan logs, he didn't hear the door behind him code open.

"Blackout, right?" The voice startled him. He whirled, rotors banging into the console, flared in alarm.

"Skywarp," he said, straightening up. Not entirely relaxing, though. Starscream's Trinemate was hardly an ally. Not an enemy so much as an undetermined quantity whose agenda Blackout wasn't sharp enough to figure out.

The black Seeker's next words made all of his seeming paranoia snap into focus. "I want to ask you a few questions about Starscream."

Blackout said nothing, nodding warily. Yeah, Skywarp would be a completely impartial questioner. Yeah, none of his answers would get back to his Second in Command. Yeah. Blackout believed that like he believed methane wasn't combustible.

"I wanted to ask you what you thought of his leadership."

Well, one of Skywarp's possible virtues is that at least he went straight for the power core line. A bark of laughter escaped Blackout's vocalizer.

"What do you mean, specifically?" he countered.

Skywarp tilted his head, his optics intense and curious. "Whatever you want to tell me."

Right. Like Blackout really felt like walking into a room full of knives. No thanks. "Competent," he said, stubbornly.

"More than that, please?" A hint of a smile, which told Blackout if nothing else that Skywarp was aware of what he was potentially asking Blackout to do. Whether or not he cared, Blackout couldn't quite figure. Which meant, default: not.

"He's unmatched as an aerial commander. We never lost a battle where he was in charge. The whole time." Blackout shrugged. "Maybe because he was too cautious and only got us into battles he knew we could win."

"Is that considered a fault? Winning battles? Choosing wisely?" Skywarp hitting back, though obliquely.

Blackout shifted on his feet, as if sidestepping the attack. "No. What? You want to hear something? Fine. He liked command a little too much. He really didn't try that hard to find Megatron." He cut himself off, even though he knew he'd already gone too far. It was all in the records anyway, he told himself.

Skywarp nodded blandly.

Blackout turned back, frustrated, to the tactical scans. "I have a job to do here," he said, gruffly.

"How did you settle your differences?" Skywarp asked, as if Blackout hadn't spoken at all. Either that or he couldn't take a hint.

Blackout cast a sidelong glare at the Seeker. "We fought. He won." End of slaggin' story.

"No hard feelings?"

Blackout's palms rang down against the console. "I went on that mission to rescue Barricade. Does that sound like hard feelings?"

"No, but this does." Skywarp's gesture took in Blackout's tense posture.

Blackout steadied himself by staring at the blips on the tactical screen. A battle frozen in time.

"It felt like betrayal," Blackout said, quietly, not taking his optics from the screen. "Megatron was our leader. Everything. He gave us purpose and meaning and focus. And then he was gone. And that focus was gone. I guess Starscream did his best trying to keep us together. An impossible task. And…," he was aware of Skywarp's deliberate, too-bland gaze on him. "And he may have a point. Megatron is…different." Blackout had said that Barricade would change—the real change had happened to Megatron, hadn't it? He thought back to what Starscream had said about the threat to reviving Barricade. Changed. That was not the Megatron he remembered. That was not the Megatron he had sworn his loyalty to. This was not Megatron. Not really. He'd had the allspark shoved in his spark. He was driven insane from the ice and…Blackout know what burial at sea had done to him, and he had not been, technically dead. This was not Megatron. This was something twisted inhabiting that shell. Something that…caused him to question himself, question his own honor and where it lay. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

Blackout brought himself up, abruptly. He did not want to think any further along those lines. Bordering on treason. On betrayal. He felt his tanks churn and his hands clutched onto the console as if to catch himself from falling.

"Starscream led the mission to rescue Megatron," Skywarp said, softly. Attempting to rebut Blackout's charge.

"Yeah. Eventually." Blackout shrugged. Compared to the poisonous thoughts roiling in his processor, suddenly Starscream's delay seemed…insignificant. "Good mission, too. Surgical, precise." Starscream had taken out the primary power source of the installation under the dam. Another of his classic 'we win' scenarios.

Skywarp's gaze intensified, trying to capture Blackout's, to read something underneath his words, underneath the still armor of his facial plating. Blackout shifted, his rotors flaring in irritation. "Do you have something you really want to say to me?"

Skywarp looked thoughtful. "What do you think of Megatron?"

Blackout immediately regretted asking. Too close to the line of thinking he did not want to pursue. "Megatron is our leader."

"Is he a good leader?"

Blackout glared. "He is my leader. That's enough." A warning, a plea. Don't ask me any more. Don't make me go farther down that road.

"How is he better than Starscream?" An evaluation question. You judge them; I judge you judging them. Blackout was grateful for the time he'd spent with Barricade—otherwise he might not have seen through this.

"I'm not qualified to judge," he said, tightly. Implying the same about Skywarp.

"Oh, surely something..."

Blackout went taut. "No."

Skywarp tilted his head, in a gesture of letting go, as if he were tilting Blackout's antagonism off his body. "I respect your humility," he said, quietly. "How about the rescue mission? Was that typical of his leadership style?"

Blackout blinked at the sudden turn. "Yeah. Everything. The briefing, the firepower...and the chaos at the end." He didn't mean that as that much of a dig. He'd...learned a lot since coming to Earth; a lot since having to work one-on-one with the Air Commander. It was probably a horrible thing to say, but Starscream's demotion had made him...almost more likeable. As if the fall had cracked open something. A megacycle ago, Starscream wouldn't have told him about Barricade and the regen.

Something must have crossed his face. Skywarp leaned forward, one long black hand coming to rest on the console. "Why did you join that mission? If you don't hold Starscream in particularly high esteem?"

"Maybe I did it for Barricade," Blackout said, hotly.

"And why did Starscream do it?"

Blackout stopped. He had...no idea.

"What is Barricade to both of you?"

Unanswerable question. A mech who had gone too far, as they both had. One who had tried too hard, sold too much of himself off in pursuit of some shallow word like service or honor. He's who I was, who we all were. He's a victim. He's a killer. He's one of us. He is us, in all of our raw potential, all of the terror of death, the agony of suffering, vicious and glorious in triumph. Nothing—another fallen soldier. Everything—another fallen soldier. How to explain that? Blackout wasn't good with words. He felt himself almost writhe under the black Seeker's steady gaze. "You'll have to ask Starscream," he said, quietly.


	14. Alienation

14. Alienation

"What?" Sideswipe's voice cut through the hangar, almost cutting out in the high end in pure outrage. "We have to what?" Ironhide felt a wash of gratitude that someone was speaking his objections. Perhaps with more energy than skill, but a better job than Ironhide himself could manage.

Optimus frowned, mostly to himself. "It is not an unreasonable request," he said. "It resolves the issue of damage to their infrastructure."

"Infrastructure," Cliffjumper snorted. "Whole damn planet could be slagged and they're worried about infrastructure."

"It is a valid concern for their cultural and economic stability."

"What about the concern for their safety? What about a concern for their lives?"

Optimus frowned. "I have been talking with Major Lennox. He insists that the best policy is to go along with this new directive and allow the American White House to have final authorization of our missions."

Prowl frowned unhappily. Apparently the first he's heard of this news as well, Ironhide thought, and he did not look happy. "Optimus," he asked, quietly, "Two logistical issues with this decision." He did not question, apparently, that the decision had already been made. Probably because he knew better. "First, this will slow our response time considerably, just on message time lag alone. Decepticons can move very quickly, and very destructively." He didn't need to mention the sinking of the USS Dreadnought. By now, it had become an enormous testament to the 'cons' destructive power. Something the humans, Ironhide thought bitterly, perhaps needed a reminder of.

"Secondly," Prowl said, "It occurs to me that this puts unequal power in the hands of only one human government. Our prior alliance was multinational."

"And that worked so well," Sideswipe snorted.

"He has a point," Ironhide heard himself say. "The Americans don't represent the entire human race." He nodded back at Sideswipe, clinging at both the confraternity and the point, his upset finding some focus, some target. Something Optimus could fix, to get him back, to square them all.

"The Americans were the first to reach out to us."

"The Americans were the first to imprison us. And to capture Bumblebee," Ironhide countered. What they did to Megatron almost came out of his vocalizer too, but…he knew how well that would go down. Con sympathizer.

"They did not know any better."

"And now they do, and they have a weapon." Ironhide leaned forward, aggression leaking from his posture. And they're still, he thought, holding us in a prison. Just one with walls of water.

"Ironhide, stand down," Optimus said.

"I will not." Ironhide balled his fists, defiant. This is what you used to value me for, he thought, bitterly. My insight. My perspective. "Do you think they will not use that weapon against us?"

"Of course they won't," Cliffjumper said. "We're the good guys."

Ironhide shifted his shoulders, irritably, falling silent. To say anything more would just cause trouble. Ruin their glossy shiny idea of the humans.

"The Americans are the ones who control Diego Garcia," Optimus said. "We are here by their sufferance and we must trust them to be able to negotiate their international politics."

"Meaning," Sideswipe muttered, "Trust them to keep us penned on the island."

Prowl admonished him with a look.

"He's got a point," Cliffjumper said. "The 'cons have more freedom of movement than we do."

Ironhide nodded. He caught sight of Flareup, her two-colored optics watching the group, curious, wary. He thought of the last words he'd said to her—to look at Optimus and see who he chose. And she was seeing. And it broke Ironhide's spark that he was right. He'd set Optimus straight. For her. For himself. For all of them. If it took all he had, he'd give it.

"Cliffjumper," Optimus began, and the tone struck Ironhide as impossibly condescending. "This is a matter of respecting their autonomy."

"No," Ironhide snapped, "This is not about their autonomy, it's about us being allowed to do our job. If we're not here to defeat the 'cons, to prevent them from destroying this world, what are we here for?"

"Ironhide," Optimus said, impatient. "There are many factors to be taken into consideration." That tone of finality—as though Ironhide could not understand and he would not deign to explain it.

"Time was," Ironhide cut him off, "you used to listen to me. Time was you at least pretended to hear me out."

He spun on his heel, to the wide hangar door. The island, small as it was, was less confining than the steelspan construction of the hangar, which seemed barely able to contain the swirling tensions. He wanted no part of it.

[***]

The sunshine blared down at him, hot and yellow, gilding his armor as he stepped out, warming him clean. He'd had enough of these debates. Enough bending to the humans. What was the right thing to do, he asked himself. He didn't trust his own instincts that much—filthy 'con, always be one at heart—but he asked anyway. If they were to survive—if they were to win—they had to be consistent. They had to be able to move around, to respond to threats. They had to be…unhobbled by politics. They had to fight to win, yes, but it seemed that Optimus had let go of even defining what that meant. Destroy the enemy? Be reactive instead of proactive? These were questions he knew the answers to, as a Decepticon. He'd never asked them as an Autobot. Had always trusted Optimus's leadership, because to question leadership was blasphemy to a 'con.

He knew he'd have to answer these questions all over again, as an Autobot.

Flareup rolled out of the hangar after Ironhide. She watched as he dropped to his vehicle mode and tore down the sunbaked runway with the air of a mech needing to think while his wheels were eating pavement. She understood: she was the same way. She hesitated for a moment, considering going after him.

No. He needed time. She wanted to talk to him, tell him he was right. She wanted…she guessed she wanted someone who'd let her cry on his shoulders without saying 'I told you so.' But that was about her, and this moment…she thought he really wanted to be by himself.

"Guess we're causing trouble for you, huh?"

Flareup whirled at the sudden voice, looking down to see a human, in a tattered military uniform, his head bare, the sun shining over a thinning patch on the top of his head. He hung between a pair of steel crutches, one leg…empty below the knee.

"Sternburgh," he said, amiably, leaning forward on the silver supports. "Had to get away from the base hospital. Sick people get to me." He said it with a wink and a smile, as though it were some kind of joke. Flareup didn't get it. The sick needed compassion, not to be rejected. He saw her reaction. The smile disappeared as fast as it came.

"I wanted to thank you," he said, soberly, "for saving us. Helping unload the copter."

"You didn't need my help."

A laugh. "Meaning, we would have managed to get our own asses out of there? Probably. But does that mean that help wasn't appreciated?"

Flareup softened. Yes. He understood. He got it. Decency. Compassion. Not all humans were bad, she thought. We cannot paint them all with the same brush, or we'll make the same mistakes with them as we did with the Decepticons. I cannot paint them all dark, and Optimus cannot paint them all white. "It is the Autobot thing to do."

"You do that a lot, before?"

She looked a little surprised. "Yes. I did refugee work. Back when we still had refugees." Back before we all became refugees. Before we lost our home.

"It's hard to do that without falling into hate," Sternburgh said, his human eyes all too keen on her face. As if he could read right into her. They had ambled between the hangars, heading out toward the runway. She was surprised how easily he moved with the crutches. Almost graceful.

"It has been hard. And Autobots…we should be above that."

"An impossible ideal," he said. "You try to separate yourself into dark and light, you'll just tear yourself apart."

That's what it felt like, she thought. Exactly. She'd seen her dark side come out—seen herself attack Prowl. Snap at her sisters. At everyone. "So, then…what do you do?"

"What do I do?" Sternburgh tilted himself against a retaining wall, hitching up his half-empty trouser leg. He looked up at her. "I can't speak for everyone like I'm the damn Buddha or something. But." He swept a hand through the blondish bristles of his hair, wiping it against his trouser leg. "Everyone's got light and dark in them, right? Good and evil, whatever you want to call it. Ability to hurt, ability to love…I don't know." He shrugged, uncomfortable. Why? Flareup thought. Did the crutches hurt him? She wanted to ask. She could carry him so easily. It wouldn't be a problem.

He looked up at her, the sun glistening off the sweat on his face. "The big choice I made, and Yee, and I guess a lot of others, too, was to decide to use that darkness. Turn it to serve something bigger, something outside myself." He shrugged again, then turned the gesture into a rolling of shoulders, cramped from the crutches. "Don't know if that's the best way, but…it's my way."

"It sounds…wise."

He laughed. "I don't know about that. Not if you knew the details. Listen, Autobot…," he hesitated, not knowing her name.

"Flareup," she supplied.

"Right. Listen, Miss Flareup, we've done plenty of bad things in the name of honor and country and the cause. To our own kind. None of us are saints. But the one good thing about recognizing that….?"

She nodded, encouraging him to continue.

"Good or bad, I guess, depending…but you can't really hate the enemy entirely, if you realize how similar you are. You can't do it, without hating a little part of yourself."

And just like that, like an explosion of crystal shards, the answer struck Flareup. What she had been looking for, handed to her by the very human who had led Barricade away.


	15. Caltrops

15. Caltrops

"I have been more than adequate in your absence," Soundwave's voice was cool over comm.

"I'm sure you have." Barricade's entire system ached, trying to acclimatize to an entirely new frame. The parts would eventually be machined—or worn down—past this point of grating pain. But not yet. He could only keep himself as still as he could, in his console chair, locking down most of his joints and setting their pain signals to low-priority override. What did Soundwave want? Gratitude? His job? Barricade was in no position to give either. This was his assigned duty, and now that he could do it again, he was doing it.

He wanted to check his high-encryption files, but didn't dare even while on comm with Soundwave. Yeah, paranoid, but paranoia had let Barricade down way fewer times than trust.

"I think I have successfully demonstrated that your position is unnecessary. That both tasks could easily be performed by one mech." Meaning, of course, Soundwave himself. Well, workload-wise, he was probably right. But Megatron was no idiot. One intelligence source was never trustworthy. All it took was one mech with an agenda—Soundwave—to bend and twist the intelligence information to serve his own ends and ambitions.

"Not my decision," Barricade snapped. Knowing he was letting the pain eat into him. "Have a job to do."

"For now," Soundwave said, darkly, before clicking off. Right. Like Barricade believed that. Or cared. He activated the security cage, cutting any connection to any computer or intrusive radio wave or network, grunting with satisfaction at the thought of how it must frustrate Soundwave. LikeBarricade cared. Take this job. The only thing he'd lose would be whatever pride of place the authority had given him. And he'd been lower before. Didn't want it anymore. Didn't know what he wanted. At this point, his resistance to Soundwave was more rote and instinct than anything. The old routines—he didn't know if they fit his new body, but for now, they were all he had.

He called open his high-encryption files, checking them scrupulously for signs of access or tampering. None. Still, he would not presume.

All in order. His research into the terrestrial and extra-terrestrial energon sources. Still there. Still under his personal code. He pulled them up, reading over them, as though maybe these new optics could find the connection he'd missed before. Ha. No such luck. After half a cycle, he gave up, shut the files. So much for interesting work. Now, analysis of the battle in Egypt, going over the TacDat input, and noting who did where and why. Oh, the fun. At least it wasn't overtaxing his cortex.

Frame after frame, roll through. Stop. Roll back. Cue up again. Start. Stop. Notice. Look. Boring. Repetitive. Soundwave wanted this job? Barricade wouldn't exactly put up the fight of the century for it.

Then he noticed…STOP. On a piece of stone that flew from a structure as a drone struck it—Cybertronian? He could almost read it. He froze the image. No, he told himself. Matrixing. It's not there. It's a pattern your optics and cortex are pulling out of randomness. But still.

He sat up, hunching over the images, going frame by frame. He found more than two dozen shots of that particular piece of rubble, enough to convince himself that matrixing was statistically improbable. There, clear as anything, was the seed shape for 'place'. The rest of the word was cut off, damaged.

He found three more images from that sight, also glyphs. This was…unusual. It had to be meaningful. The Autobots might have gotten to the battlefield before they had, but not early enough to have carved—and weathered—strange glyphs into stone. Even they were not quite that good.

And the words…maybe they looked different because they were Autobot? He could figure out partial characters, seed shapes. But the whole word eluded him, time and again. This…was something for another time. He called up his encryption to log it. But the strange niggling that had been at him—a thin, high, grating whine of paranoia, picked up a few decibels. But he'd checked.

But he hadn't done a full scan of the logging coding itself.

No. You worry too much. Still. It wouldn't let go, like a repair bot fixated on its job. And Soundwave's oh-so-timely comm had fed it hot burning fuel. He stored the glyph data in his own cortex, with a sigh, and opened the encryption coding. Line by line. Even more tedious than the TacDat. He ran the strings against the base in his cortex. And froze.

A whole section of code that hadn't been there before. He didn't have to read it to know who put it there. His whole system had been compromised. How? When? Almost immaterial. Soundwave was after him. Ironic—going after him when he really, really didn't feel like running.

Still. The glyph data was his. He was not going to hand that over to him, too. And he knew that Soundwave would know he'd been found out. Or at least, he had to presume that. Always err on the side of 'they're out to get you.'

And...the energon data. Frag. He felt his too-new facial plates tighten, grating against each other. He had accessed that first thing. If Soundwave had planted a similar worm in his access shells, he'd see and know and wonder why Barricade had gone there first. Fraggin' stupid. Come back and lose your touch. Yeah, this rebirth thing is totally working out for you. Forgot your fraggin' common sense. Forgot what kept you alive in the first place.

He snapped the data in his hard-data cortex. He ached, but pushed himself from his chair. If he was going to have to fight, he needed allies. And he could think of only one. Not again. Not reduced to the pathetic droneling begging for assistance again. New chance at life, right? That's what they all said about regen. Do it all over again. In his case...it was like being forced back to the same points in his past, revisiting each of his shames. Helpless to save himself, without anyone to turn to...except Starscream.


	16. Living Through History

Merry Christmas! :D

16. Living Through History

Flatline sighed. Megatron's insistence on daily status updates was...standing in the way of progress. An impediment. Flatline did not mind meticulous work, but he did mind the tedious process of translating his notes to terms Megatron might understand, weighing what was essential to convey, and what was...inexpedient. Megatron need not know everything. Good science held tangential discoveries aside.

He logged in the day's report and pushed it through. Done. And now, he could get back to research. The interesting part. The part that he took a strange, perverse pleasure in keeping off of today's report. Petty, passive-aggressive, probably. He didn't mind such labels. He had a few he could just as easily apply to those who labeled him.

But this...was science. He felt the strange cool rush he always felt at the brink of something new. Others talked about the thrill of combat. This was his: the verge of the unknown, almost like a breeze from the mouth of knowledge itself.

He resisted the poetry of the moment—weak, imprecise—and flicked on the large device. He tilted his head, his audio, long-accustomed to this kind of work, listened carefully for the proper pitch. Harmonics were vital to the success of this experiment. So far, so good. He reached for the tuner, checking the amplitude. Good. He turned to the case where the Fallen's cortical system was stored. That was the mine that Flatline wanted. Megatron was certain that the Fallen's power was in his spark. Power may be there, but Flatline was after another kind of power.

The Fallen had existed before time. Before the Universe. What he must know...

Flatline set the tuner against transmitters he had spliced into the cortical casing, his secondary set of arms bracing the cortex, his primary drilling a small hole in the forelobe, and then paused, shaping a small nanoprobe he kept stored up his forearm into a thin spike, pushing it through the tiny aperture, then letting it spread its fine tendrils through the components of the damaged cortex. Inanimate metal, nothing else, right now.

He reached with his other hand and flipped the tuner, current singing through the transmitters. The nanotendrils shivered as the current tickled over them, finding areas out of tune, where the current stuttered or went flat. Much work to be done before he could think of a full onlining of the cortex. He looked up at the overhead tank where the spark energy of the drones had been stored, considering. Too risky? The wild energy might rush wildly through, doing more damage than repair. But...young sparks had an immense capacity to change and grow. Still in their first frames, they had the adaptability to enter in, to own, any system. Perhaps...

He needed a proof of concept first. But in the meantime, he knew what needed to be done here. He could begin the slow repairs of the cortical damage, manually, while he also worked on the test of dronespark. He felt another surge, another cool breeze from the maw of Science. A self-feeding system, curiosity always creating more curiosity, knowledge leading to more knowledge. This was ambition.

[***]

Vortex jerked out of his recharge abruptly. He rocked up, sitting slumped, his hands limp over his lap. Ironic, really, he thought. His first truly conscious thought—the first one that reassured him he was no longer in the grip of the memory purge, but well and truly out of it—was that. Ironic. Of all the things he had done, all of the thousands of thoughtless and thought-out brutalities, conflagrations, acts of wanton violence...this one haunted him. Not, of course, for the who. He had no regrets. Swindle had sold them out for the last time. Blast Off had ended in hard regen, because of Swindle. Not that Vortex cared all that much about Blast Off—but it could have been any of them. Swindle, of course, had his story: that he had swung the deal to get them more, and better, intelligence. Get them a big mission, get them back together. Prove the Crisis Intervention Accords were bunk. Gestalts couldn't be stationed together; couldn't work together.

My team. My team! Gone. Taken away by some bureaucrat's signature. No more gestalt. No more respect. No more power. Just another grunt.

Yeah. So he'd fallen for, helped Swindle, brought Blast Off over. And the cargo was supposed to be the cover story. But of course it was the shipment. And of course, the shipment was volatile. And Blast Off...blew. A blue-hot fireball blazing across the runway as the sudden change in air pressure ignited the oh-so-cleverly-wrongly-mislabeled contents. And Swindle, wailing in distress...over his fraggin' CARGO.

It had been the heat of the moment—literally—the two of them blasted by the enamel-charring heat from Blast Off's explosion. But he had lashed out, and torn the spark chamber from Swindle's chassis, crushing it slowly, not even bothering, not even deigning to salvage the charge. Letting it prickle and blaze across his hand servos—that got locked into that tight fist, the servos melted by the charge. Swindle, dead, at his hands. No regrets.

Until Onslaught had found out. The Crisis Accords hadn't prevented his old commander from a little old-fashioned counseling. Vortex had thought he'd braced himself for the worst, ready for one of his former commander's notorious rages, but Onslaught had only said, in a voice so cold it sliced like a sliver of frozen space, "We will never be together again, and it is your doing. I hope you remember that."

He remembered. And it was the contrast, Vortex thought, between the fierce rue-less joy of feeling Swindle finally incapable of screwing them over ever again, with the cold horror of the consequence, that kept this moment haunting him.

The Constructicons were here, reminding him daily of his loss. His foul-up. He had clutched so desperately at being invited onto the special team mission—he knew why. They were no replacement, not really, but for a few cycles, he could feel that ache subside, feel that emptiness filled. He could pretend. They were not the same, nothing the same, but it was as close as he could come. And their trust of him had seemed a token of what he had betrayed.

He would give anything to have that back...


	17. Sometimes the Light's Too Bright

A/N Best wishes for the New Year! :D

17. Sometimes the Light's Too Bright

Diego Garcia

Sideswipe tried to push the troubled thoughts from his processor. He didn't like that kind of thinking, really. He didn't like any of this. He'd come here to fight 'cons. That was his vocation, the only thing he was any good at anymore. But it seemed like he'd arrived here just in time for the party to close down. And not even the good kind of party.

He looked up at the late-afternoon sky, as if he could see the Decepticon warship perched in high orbit. They were still out there, whether he could see them or not. They were there and he and his team were HERE and…likely to stay that way.

Diego Garcia had never seemed quite so confining before. When the NEST team had left it had suddenly seemed all too big, the barracks and their hangars ringing empty, no longer filled with the bustle and noise of a military at its prime. Now, it seemed too small, a long, wobbly U-shaped hamster-wheel, and Sideswipe found himself trying to calculate how long it would take him to cross from one end of the atoll to the other, without trying to think of why, just channeling frustration into action, motion, however futile.

Not long. And who had called it a prison? It certainly felt like one. Also…a target. They were that human expression about squatting waterfowl? The fact that the 'cons hadn't gotten around to exploiting that yet was not really comforting. Maybe Ironhide could explain precisely why they hadn't targeted Diego Garcia yet, but Sideswipe really thought he couldn't be the only one who thought about it, who knew how vulnerable they are. And they still didn't know where they were going, or why. Sideswipe just prayed it wouldn't be another island. He was beginning to hate islands.

Optimus said to trust him. Said he knew what was best. Sideswipe was beginning to have his doubts. How do you win a war—slag, how do you FIGHT a war—trapped on an island? He activated his blades, then cut them off. A nervous gesture, one of unfocused aggression. They didn't understand this part of him: how he needed to do something. Needed to move, to act. Staying still was like death to him.

He rolled to a stop on the edge of the base's ringroad. The white sand had drifted over the edge of the pavement, picked out golden by the afternoon sun, shadows smooth along the dunes. The water lapped gently at the shore. Peaceful. Calm. He hated it. He looked out for a long moment at the horizon, hoping to see some hint of the low dark clouds that promised a threatening storm. Just for something different than the bright, forcedly cheerful sunlight.

He almost didn't hear an engine rolling up on him. No threat. Not here. Unfortunately. He turned.

"Oh."

"Yeah, hi to you too, Sideswipe." Cliffjumper snorted as he pushed back into his bot mode. "You communing with nature, now?" The grin was still stiff-looking on his too-new face.

Sideswipe shrugged, irritable. He just wasn't in the mood to be laughed at. Not even by CJ. "Just…I don't even know." He looked helplessly at his hands.

Cliffjumper studied him. "You're not so cool with Optimus right now."

Sideswipe shrugged. "I'm fine."

"Yeah? Well I'm not so sure.." Cliffjumper dropped down onto the sand, letting a handful of it slide through his fingers.

"He's…our leader." Sideswipe was hesitant.

"Yeah, he is. And I'm not saying anything about that. Just that…this time I think he's wrong." Cliffjumper looked up at Sideswipe, scooping another handful of the white sand through his fingers. It fell like gold dust, limned by the sun.

"About?"

Cliffjumper shrugged. "Why we're here. Why we're not fighting. Why we haven't even decided what we're doing. Why we're letting the humans dictate to us."

"I thought you were all cool with the humans. You seem pretty sure they won't use that weapon."

Cliffjumper shrugged. "Well, they have had weapons they could use on us before. They never have."

"Except on Bumblebee." Sideswipe's optics widened. Where had this come from? He didn't hate the humans. It was as if this stuff was being pulled out of some dark place.

"They…learned better." Cliffjumper said, but he didn't sound too sure.

"They learned to make a better weapon is what it sounds like," Sideswipe muttered. "If you believe Vortex."

"If. Do you?"

Sideswipe dropped down next to Cliffjumper. "Believe Vortex?" One hell of a question. "Yeah. I do. In this. And because of Bumblebee."

"Well, we don't know that whole story, really. Neither of us were here yet."

"How much do you have to know? He's not here! He's bailed on us because of it."

Cliffjumper tilted his optics into the setting sun. Long shadows reached their fingers up the dune at him. "We don't know that that's why he's not here."

"Yeah but…point is…" Sideswipe stopped himself before he could say the words. They hung between them nonetheless, as sure and loud as if he'd spoken them. 'Bumblebee left because he didn't believe in it anymore.'

A long miserable moment. Cliffjumper was going to point out that Bumblebee had run to the humans in his defection, the same species who had tortured him. But the words wouldn't come. All that seemed to matter was that Bumblebee—one of their best and toughest—had turned his back on the war entirely, content to abandon his team and live in some half-shack garage. The rejection was of them. Their way of life. Who they were.

"Do you?" Cliffjumper finally asked.

"Frag yes! We need to win. Not just for these humans, though." Sideswipe rolled back and forth on his footwheels idly, nervously, as if contemplating escape. "Can I be honest? Don't really care what they think or want. They don't know enough. They don't know 'cons like we do." Something more he wanted to say, but suddenly, he looked at Cliffjumper and wasn't sure of his intent. Why was Cliffjumper even here, talking to Sideswipe at all. Cliffjumper! The mech who'd been almost like a brother to him. Since…well, Sideswipe had his own reasons to fight. Revenge, but also self-immolation as an atonement for what he had done—what the war, what one anonymous sniper, had made him do.

"They'll learn soon enough," Cliffjumper said, with an obviously flimsy patience. He was as frustrated as Sideswipe. "Their little weapon thing might be good, but it can't be all that."

"I don't care if they learn or not," Sideswipe said, and the bitterness echoed its truth around them. It was enough when he was laying down his life for his own kind. But…this didn't seem worth it. Were you still good if your goodness had a price ceiling? He paused, looked down, wiped his blades against each other as though trying to wipe away some invisible stain. "All this tippytoe around their feelings and politics is giving the enemy a tactical advantage. And sooner or later they'll catch on."

"I think," Cliffjumper said, slowly, "They made a big mistake with Barricade. If you look at it, the 'cons have been more or less ignoring the humans. I mean, this is the second aircraft carrier that's gone down, but the first, well. I mean, those were entry-protoforms. Honestly? Almost an accident. This one though was deliberate. Kinda…makes me think things are going to get a lot worse for the humans." He stopped, almost surprised at the torrent of words and the implied criticism. He added, lamely, "If we just wait long enough and the 'cons do act, just a matter of time before they come screaming for our help." Optimus would be right. Cliffjumper held onto that idea.

"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know if I'm up for waiting all that long, though."

Cliffjumper scoffed, throwing the handful of sand down with a strange sudden violence. "Like what? What do you think you can do on your own?"

Sideswipe shrugged. "You're right," he said. "Nothing. Why I just came out here, you know? Just to clear my head."

But, he thought, his mind racing to Ironhide, maybe I'm not on my own.


	18. Optical Delusion

18. Optical Delusion  
Nemesis

Barricade crossed cautiously up to the private recharge quarters of the larger aerials. Not really all that safe to be here, but then again, in the grand scheme of things a bit less unsafe than, you know, hiding information from another intelligence mech and going sub rosa to the former commander, recently and painfully demoted. This of course above and beyond the considerable lump of personal pride he had to swallow to ask anyone for help, least of all Starscream.

He chimed the door, which opened instantly into the small vestibule before Starscream's recharge, to see Starscream in some earnest conversation with the black jet. Must be Skywarp, he thought, dully. How much had I missed? How much has changed? He took a step back, leaving, when the black jet's optics caught his movement.

"Barricade," Skywarp said, his voice deep and almost too smooth. "Right?"

Barricade felt his optics narrow. Right. Powerplay me by dangling how much you know about me. "Skywarp," he responded. Give away nothing. Level ground. He could feel the optics traveling up and down his new frame. Same as the old frame, Barricade thought, bitterly. It was one of those judging glances, trying to figure him out.

"Skywarp was at Tunguska," Starscream cut in, awkwardly. His hands were still half frozen in the expostulating gesture he'd been making before Barricade showed up.

"Yeah. I remember." Barricade's optics never left the jet. Challenge for challenge.

"He also helped retrieve you from the aircraft carrier."

Barricade's optics flicked over to Starscream's. "Reminding me of what I owe him? Didn't ask for either one."

Starscream flinched back, unsettled. "Did you not want to be retrieved?"

Barricade's turn to flinch. The worst part was, he'd been trying to get at Starscream; Starscream was…honestly asking. He pressed his mouthplates together, the joints still stiff and too-new. "Not really," he snapped.

Skywarp grinned, darkly. "So…you're not here to say thank you, I take it."

Barricade glowered, his hands involuntarily clutching. As though the data he had were a material thing he could grab at. "Need to talk to Starscream," he said. His voice was raw, the admission almost painful. Starscream tilted his head quizzically before lowering himself down, the hydraulics hissing in his legs. Barricade twitched. He hated the size difference between them, hated the condescending gesture of bending down to be at optic level with him. "Alone," he added, sharply. He heard the soft hum of subvoc between them, before Skywarp turned, suddenly, and walked off. Right. Like he'd need to guess what they talked about.

"Yes," Starscream prompted.

Barricade's fists balled, suddenly resisting. He teetered, between telling and not telling. A flash of the Dreadnought—the bright sun slicing dark shadows onto the carrier's deck, a distant shimmer of pain. He stopped, fighting it off. "What was Skywarp here for?" he said, keeping his voice cool.

"He is in my Trine," Starscream said, as if that explained everything. Or anything at all.

"You're an idiot to trust him."

"I did not indicate that I do," Starscream replied. "Are you losing your ability to read motivations?" Intended to sting, definitely. Barricade didn't know if Starscream intended it to cut quite that deeply though.

Barricade's optics tightened. "Possibly," he said, turning on his heel. This was a bad idea. A stupid idea. What had he been thinking? No, Starscream had been right. He was losing it. And without that…that ability that had kept him alive, and useful, what good was he? WHAT was he?

"Why did you seek me out?" Starscream asked. Not moving. Almost as if not daring to. Barricade had come to him. He could see something in the smaller mech's face, a quiet, uncomfortable need. It brought back so many memories—too many memories.

Barricade stopped, one hand reaching for the frame of the door. "Not important." Don't ask. I don't even know. Don't know anything anymore.

A soft snort, but Starscream didn't shift from his position. "If it were not important you would not have come."

Slag, Barricade cursed. Simple truth cutting through any pretty story he could contrive. He looked around the recharge quarters. So different from all those megacycles ago. So different. Everything was different. Why was he even here? On any level, he couldn't answer it. "Why did you?"

"Rescue you?"

Barricade flinched. Pathetic. Helpless. In need of rescue. "Yeah." He turned, just slightly, just enough to see between his shoulder kibble. To see…and not see. To hide his face, his reaction. Coward.

Starscream's head tilted, his optics drifting to a corner of the room, as if the answers were somehow written there. "The humans had you. The Autobots took you." He paused, realizing the thinness. Truths, but such things had never sparked a rescue before. "We had unfinished business," he said, finally.

Barricade felt his mouth twitch half in a snarl. "No fun letting the enemy have the fun of killing me?"

He heard Starscream rise behind him. All pretense of equality—it was a joke, an insulting gesture at best—gone. "Perhaps I simply intended to keep you from your martyrdom."

"What do you even know?" Barricade whirled. "You act like you fraggin' know me. You have no right."

"Of all mechs, Barricade, I have every right." Starscream stepped closer, every micron of his greater height looming over Barricade. The smaller mech refused to be cowed, tilting his long face upward defiantly. "I did not save you all those years ago to die that way."

"Your powers don't extend to deciding that." I was so ready. To let go. For it to be over. Nothing but misery anyway. A heavy burden waiting to be let go. At one level, Barricade had no desire to hang on.

Starscream shrugged, a mass of metal shifting with the gesture, making it seem larger than it was meant to be. "This time, apparently, they have."

"You think I owe you."

"You think you owe me." A faint flicker, almost amusement, in the optics.

"Not here to play word games," Barricade snapped. Another sudden flash of remembered pain across his net, the connective cilia under one thigh plate shuddering in phantom agony.

"Ah. Well then, why are you here?" More amusement.

Barricade spat, "Thought you could help. Guess I was wrong." He stormed to the door.

The jet's larger strides beat him to the door. He found himself confronting a pair of long bronze legs. "I can help you. How?"

Barricade twitched. Now or never. He's offering. As openly as you have ever communicated with each other. Have you come so very little distance in all these years? Almost losing ground? "Found something." His careful pitch…gone. Excellent work, Barricade. Frag. Dying has really glitched your circuits.

"Something."

He shifted, uncomfortably, taking a step back, into the room, getting distance. "Probably nothing," he said, backpedaling verbally as well. "Matrixing. Optical glitch."

"I should like to see it." At Barricade's continued hesitation, he added, "Were I still in command, would you have brought this to me?"

"Fine," Barricade snarled, as though Starscream had somehow won a major point. Frag. Get a hold of yourself, Barricade. Can't function like this. "Where's your cortical jack?"

Starscream paused. "Oh, you are unfamiliar with the layouts of these recharge quarters." Announcing the explanation. Yes. Something else I don't know. Something else that separates us. Barricade muttered to himself as Starscream indicated the small console. He attached the cortical line without comment and flashed the first image up on the screen. There was, of course, a more direct, more intimate way to do cortical relays. But Barricade wasn't going to suggest a direct connection. No way.

Starscream bent over the monitor, optics spiraling in and out, studying the image.

"Matrixing. Told you," Barricade said. "Not even real words."

"No. It is not matrixing." Starscream paused, looking over at Barricade for a klik before he returned his gaze to the screen. One talon traced over the image, circling parts of the glyph. "It is very, very old," he murmured. He looked up again. "The human…during my captivity. She speculated that our two factions had been separated for so long that our languages diverged. It has happened, apparently, in their languages in far less time."

"So this is half-Autobot?" The idea of having to get an Autobot to read it was…unsettling. Barricade wasn't fond of Autobots right now. Even less than usual.

"If I understood her, not quite. They might be able to decipher parts we cannot, but the whole word is bigger than the component parts." He frowned.

Barricade frowned as well. "Wasn't aware you were quite so chatty with your little human captor."

Starscream stiffened, then relaxed. "It provided an unaccustomed and un pleasant time for self-reflection." He met Barricade's gaze until the smaller mech's dropped away. He relented. "We shall need time for this analysis—are you capable of it?"

"Yes," Barricade said, hotly. Capable of staring at glyphs. Capable of scrolling through Autobot lexicons if that was part of it. Simple shell programs could do parts of it. The problem would be doing it here. He swore.

"Yes?" Starscream echoed.

"Can't do it here. Can't explain." Miserable. Humiliating. Unable to take care of himself. Hiding behind Starscream all over again.

"I do not think that you have to. Soundwave."

Frag. Guess he didn't have to. Barricade tried to shrug like it didn't matter. Not Soundwave nor how easily Starscream guessed. You've so lost your edge you're a blunt weapon. If even that. If you're not entirely soft.

Starscream considered. "There are mainframes on Earth suitable for the shells you need to run?"

Barricade nodded. They'd be slower—a lot slower—but still faster than a tedious manual search. And, for what it was worth, he was safer on Earth in enemy territory than he was on the Nemesis, with Soundwave tracking his every log-in.

Starscream tapped the screen's frozen image. "I should also like to know more about the humans who built these structures. This stone was shaped for building before this was incised." His voice had taken on, almost imperceptibly, the old note of command. Barricade wondered if the jet noticed it himself. 


	19. Drop

A/N Toward the end of this chapter, an OC that miiiiiiiiiiiight be familiar to some of you. Yeah, I decided why not. :D

19. Drop

Barricade hadn't been able to do much research—afraid to touch really any console on the _Nemesis_ for fear of Soundwave's intrusion—so he'd had to wait until he hit planetside. Another layer of tedium and delay, but essential, he told himself. Necessary. Essential and necessary to what, though, he wasn't ready to answer.

Blackout was his ride to the surface, so he found himself crammed in with a load of rations to be dropped for some groundbound mechs. Not the most comfortable ride, but Soundwave wouldn't suspect anything. Until too late.

"Doing okay?" Blackout asked. Perfunctory, Barricade thought. He didn't care. Or worse, that he did care, and thought that Barricade was suddenly made out of brittle plasglass. Always different, aren't you? A liability. A drag in combat.

"Fine." Don't ask. I'm fine. Don't make me ask myself.

A long pause, filled with the sound of rotors working above the heavy load. "Doesn't get any easier," Blackout said, suddenly. The tone was hard to read over the rotor-roar.

"What?"

"Coming back from offline. Doesn't get any easier." Blackout knew he wasn't very good at expressing these kinds of things. He just remembered his own journey back from the bottom of the ocean. That long, agonized journey of precise-present-pain. It made a line. It had to. Everything became a before or an after. Alive and after death.

Barricade flinched. "I'm fine," he repeated, stupidly. Yeah. Say it enough times and who will believe it?

"Yeah. Well." Blackout sounded unhappy. "Not the only one who's been through it." Clumsy. As soon as he'd said it he realized how bad it sounded.

"Yeah," Barricade snapped. "I'm not fraggin' special. Know that." Trying to get over it, he added. Trying to prove myself. TO myself.

"Not what I meant," Blackout said, quietly. He stopped. What was he going to do? Tell Barricade if he wanted to talk he'd be there? What kind of slag was that? Especially with how well this conversation was going? Yeah, hey, Barricade. Want me to screw up some more trying to say something comforting? "Glad you're back," he added, after a moment.

"Glad someone is," Barricade snapped.

[***]

The drop, well, barring the conversation, went smoothly enough, landing in pitch blackness, and Barricade had offloaded with the supplies at one of the drop points. Just like cargo. Only way Soundwave would know any better would be to monitor satellite. Which he would when he realized Barricade wasn't shipboard anymore. But Barricade had set a few remote random log ins to his console that should make that happen later rather than sooner. Buying time. The only thing he could do. All right, and the prickle of rage Soundwave would feel when he realized he'd been duped was something else he could do. Still. Yeah of all the talents to retain from across death, the power to infuriate.

Well, whatever worked. The night air seemed almost full of life itself after cycles aboard the recycled air of the Nemesis. Even the trees themselves, bursting up tall and sudden along the verge of the DZ clearing, seemed shimmering with life. It seemed to shred his mood, fill him with a fool's sense of purpose. But it was better than nothing.

He rolled into the darkness, headlamps dimmed, after the sound of Blackout's engine had disappeared into the distance and spent the next several hours popping up on local wireless networks, probing. Until he found one. A large network. Fast. Fast enough, at any rate. A local college, minimally firewalled. Definitely could work. And he thought back to Starscream's other speculation and did a quick directory search. Yes. An archeology department. He spent the night searching the faculty by name and publications across databases, and by morning he'd found his target.

[***]

To: trevelj

From: BC643

Subject: Possible funding, Solar Calendar Project.

June read the email over six times. Who would email her from the NEA at three in the morning? It could be a server thing or something though. Weirder stuff had happened. And this was just…too perfect. Like someone had been reading her mind or something. Her project. The project she'd been filling out grant proposals for for years. Multi-cultural. Multi-site. Suddenly, not just a little nibble, but one from the Feds themselves. The one they told her would never get funded because it was too big. Not tied down to one dig or location.

It was too personal to be spam, either. Huh, funny how your mind works when something too good to be true happens? You keep trying to prove to yourself it's not real. Look a gift horse in the mouth? Yeah, to make sure it's not a Nigerian bank scam. Welcome to the twenty first century.

With one last suspicious thought about the strength of Coldwater Comm Coll's anti-virus software, she clicked on the attachments. Photographs. All legitimate. Of sites she wanted to include in her study. And the questions were easy—explain what she knew, or give bibliography—about each site.

They probably just want to prove you're not a flake, she thought. Besides. It wasn't like they were asking for her credit card or even her mother's maiden name. What was the harm?

She opened a Word document and began typing, eagerly, hating the fact that she only had 20 minutes before her next class.

[***]

Barricade chortled from his spot in the student parking lot, tracing the email. He logged when his target accessed the email, the attachments, the fine little worm infiltrating her entire hard drive, logging everything she did. The project had been perfect. Scary actually. The college he wanted, with the large computing system, was ten miles away. But this Trevelyan female was here. He'd laid his shells into the mainframes and let them do their work, loading two character lexicons and then the images he had found. More, and more. And when the Trevelyan had sent him more photographs from her own research, he had found more glyphs: in a place called Stonehenge, for one. Cahokia in the United States. Glyphs hidden in the midground, barely visible. But he could see them. And given a few more solars, the hack run would give him more. The humans had taken him down; he was getting his power back. They would be the tools he needed to get his answers.

Then, he'd call it even.

Maybe.


	20. Three Turns

20. Three Turns

Dead End frowned at himself in the maintenance facility. Time was, he remembered, he took better care of himself. Time was he actually cared. Seems so stupid now. Die anyway, who cares what you look like? Only mattered when the others were around to get annoyed with, show them up. He didn't care what anyone else thought. His gestalt was gone, and so…who cared?

He squatted down to scrub his toe plate. Go on and try and convince yourself, he thought, that you're not doing this because of the damn Constructicons. A gestalt. Why them? Why not his team?

It didn't matter, really, did it? What mattered was that he had almost, almost had a team again. That mission to retrieve Barricade had felt strangely comforting, much better than the mission to Bourzey. Which was weird, because he was the only grounder in both missions, really. And…let's be honest, Barricade wasn't his favorite mech. But…he had brought all that drama on himself. Over-reached. Over-reacted in the interrogation. Almost an explosion of activity, determined to impress. Yeah, overshot your mark there, didn't you? Got yourself slagged good and proper.

They'd given you a second chance. Even Blackout, who hated you. He'd given you a chance, and a lift back up to the _Nemesis_. Grudgingly accepting. A kind of redemption, a kind of belonging. And now…a gestalt. As if to rub in his face that his redemption wasn't the same. Wasn't good enough. Try as he might to delude himself. Half-belonging at best.

And then the drones. Frag. What kind of loser had he become? How far had he let himself go?

He scrubbed more deeply into his ankle gyros, not hearing the sound of an approaching mech until he heard the cleanser taps kick on. He turned: Vortex.

He nodded a perfunctory greeting. The large copter nodded down at him, a sardonic grimace on his face as he noticed the brush and the small jar of wax by Dead End's hip. "Getting to you, too, huh?"

"Who?" Dead End asked stupidly. Oh, right. "Yeah. Not fair."

"Them and not us, you mean?"

Dead End hadn't realized he'd tensed until his servos released. He nodded.

Vortex shrugged, the cleanser spraying off his rotors in a shimmering rainbow halo. "Least yours is still alive."

Dead End broke contact with his optics, snatching up his brush again. "For all I know…?"

Vortex twitched back. He hadn't thought of that. His team had stopped talking after, well, the obvious. Blast Off's crippling injury, and Swindle's death. Onslaught had covered for Vortex, as sort of a last favor, one only grudgingly given, obviously done more for old debts than any thought of future contact. A farewell present: keeping Vortex off the deactivation list. Some gift. It had never occurred to him that other gestalts might have broken down…in other ways. Strange how you always thought your misery was not only the worst in the world but the only.

He gave a bitter laugh. "Getting to both of us, aren't they?" Stupid to try to reach out. What do we have in common? Except our loss? Except the hot jealousy at watching another gestalt get what we can't ever have? Nothing to build an alliance on.

Or was it?

[***]

Starscream frowned at the energy requisition log. It was…perhaps…duplicitous. But Megatron had never altered the command-report access codes and surely another set of optics could only help with the smooth operation of the ship. No. He would not delude himself. He was looking—always—for an advantage. Some way he could either find a situation before it immolated and gain Megatron's apparently fleeting respect. Or—a thin phantom whisper began skirling in the back of his cortex—a weakness to exploit, a flaw in Megatron's leadership.

But this was unusual. A sudden massive drain on the energy resources. Energon usage had spiked after the Tunguska run, everyone running a little energon-happy. Starscream had not protested—after so long with so many shortages, even a little more seemed like luxury. He did not even mind—much—that they associated energon luxury with Megatron, and that he had become a byword for stinginess. He who had done what he had to do to ration their meager supplies to last for megacycles….

But this was sudden and massive. And from Flatline's laboratory space. Not the regen chambers. In fact, some energy had been diverted from the repair bays for this. Meaning vital repairs were put on hold. This was unacceptable. Especially when he noticed the requisition authorization coding was Megatron's. A private little project, Starscream thought. Interesting.

More than interesting. But what to do with this? How could he utilize it?

Megatron slandered him to Skywarp? A smile curled over Starscream's face. Perhaps it was time to return the favor.

[***]

June cursed when she opened her email three days later. Idiot. Fool. You knew it was too good to be true. You should have trusted your instincts. But no. Just like everyone else, you were blinded by the money. Blinded by money and dreams.

She forced herself to remember—so she wouldn't forget—the glee she'd felt when her first reply had been responded to so quickly. BC643, whoever he or she was, had been so quick to respond with follow up questions, requests for photographs she had from her own private collection, that she'd been so busy floating on a cloud of delusion that she hadn't thought clearly. She'd been so flattered that he'd heard of her work, even knew that she had photographs that she'd blown off her office hours to run home and get the flashdrive they were on. And the questions about the recognized mystery of the petroglyphs…. It was like someone was finally speaking her language.

But now.

She stared at the screen, the simple Calibri font message that tore the scales from her eyes with force enough to hurt.

"Theory of origin for the petroglyphs: Alien contact?"

Oh god. It still ached to read. A crackpot. Some goofy lunatic group with an NEA grant (your tax dollars at work) funding some idiotic pet theory. She looked at the clock in her office: fifteen minutes before Paleolithic Cultures. Time, perhaps, for a good cry. She could blame her red eyes on allergies.

She deleted the email with the force she would have used to crush a dream.


	21. Machinations

21. Machinations

Diego Garcia

Ironhide called up another scan, cursing at the delay. On their ships, on their stations, he'd gotten so used to the lightning fast processing speeds of their dataservers. Here, they had to use human technology. Which moved at amputated crawl.

He banged a knuckle irritatedly against the console.

"Please be careful," Prowl said. "The equipment is rather fragile."

And that, Ironhide thought, was the other thing. Slow and easily breakable. And extremely frustrating. He backed up a step, trying to bottle his frustration. "I just don't know why we can't use our equipment."

Prowl looked mildly aggrieved, but Ironhide couldn't tell if it was a tacit agreement with him, or at him for asking. "Optimus had decided that it was safest to restrict our technological presence on this planet."

Ironhide shook his head. Sure. Makes perfect sense. Keep the deadly technology out of the hands of our allies. Who have already shown a propensity for reverse engineering. But then...are they really our allies? "It's hampering our abilities," he said, carefully.

Prowl nodded. Well, of course, Ironhide thought. Prowl might side with Optimus in all things, but he wouldn't lie. And of all of them, Prowl fretted operational efficiency.

Ironhide probed. "Doesn't it bother you?"

"It is merely another factor to work into tactical planning," Prowl said, mildly. As though crippled data retrieval was merely like acquiring meteorological data.

Ironhide sighed. "So, the whole run everything through the American government as well? Just fine by you?"

"It is," Prowl sighed, "an unfortunate restriction. But a necessary one."

Necessary. Ironhide snorted. Ridiculous. Why do we even listen to them? Why don't we just do what we do, whether they like it or not? We can still save them, save the planet for them. It made no sense. "Did you," he asked slowly, feeling as though he were on unstable ground, "did you ever think about how much collateral damage gets done because of these restrictions of theirs?"

"Yes," Prowl frowned. "I have performed those calculations."

"But it's unnecessary damage."

"It's unfortunate damage. But in the parameters in which we are to operate, entirely necessary."

Ironhide shook his head. Perhaps the problem was him. Perhaps he was still thinking like a 'con. Maybe so. But he couldn't shake that in this, the 'con way would make sense. Go in, fight them, get out. Give the place back to the humans. The only way this made sense would be if Optimus had decided that they were staying here, permanently. The thought struck him, suddenly—that was why he was trying so hard to make friends with them. Well, with this new weapon, that was probably moot. They didn't want to be friends.

"Hey, Prowl," he asked, "Run these numbers, will you? Based on their actions, do the humans want to ally with us? Let us stay permanently?"

Prowl frowned, his processor ticking over. "No. Very few indicators lead to that conclusion."

"So then, why are we doing things their way?"

Prowl gave him that unpleasant frown that told him he'd asked a question that didn't reduce to easy calculations. "Because...we have to," he said uncertainly. A moment later, he rallied, "What precisely are you looking for? Perhaps I can assist you."

Ironhide shrugged. "Just looking for a pattern. Trying to figure out where they've been so maybe we can know where they'll strike next, or what they're looking for." Sitting and doing nothing was killing him. He had to find a way to get into action again. Find a battle. Get there his own way if he had to. DO something. Move, fight. Get ahead of the enemy. They'd been responsive for far too long, letting the 'cons set the battlefield? This had gone on long enough. If he could figure out where they'd show up, they could at least set up a proper ambush.

"To put the requests in to the American government in advance?"

"Yeah," Ironhide said, darkly. "Something like that."

[***]

Chromia and Arcee had pulled Cliffjumper aside. "She'll listen to you," Arcee said. "She respects you." She kept her voice quiet, optics over his shoulder as if she were guilty of something terrible.

"She respects you as well," Cliffjumper said. He had no idea why they'd singled him out. He liked Flareup, but, well, they didn't exactly move in the same range. All of the cyclebots—they might be a bit faster, but he was better armed for a longer fight.

"I know," Arcee said, "but she'll think I'm insulting her, you know. Saying she's not good enough to be a warrior. It's a sibling thing—we can't help but get a bit competitive." She tilted her head, knowing Cliffjumper couldn't entirely understand. No one could, really. No one understood their bond, much less their shared trauma. And the hideous gulf that had somehow sprung up between them. The fact that they hadn't seen it coming until now, until it felt like it was too late, disturbed her.

"She was plenty good from what I've seen," Cliffjumper said, uneasily.

"Of course. But, you know. Mentally. Well, no, really. Her spark isn't in it." Arcee winced. It sounded like a betrayal. But they each had evolved different abilities. And to be honest, it would be the best use of their resources, of them, to have Flareup have her own specialty. A fighter, an intelligence analyst, and a medic? Almost an ideal spread. They'd given up personal vengeance to serve the Decepticon cause (though if Thundercracker ever did show up, Arcee wasn't sure how well she'd be able to keep her objectivity). They'd given themselves over to the war, to pushing the Autobot cause. Fighting for something larger than they were.

Cliffjumper nodded. "It's not for everyone." He did it better than most, he thought. No shame in not living up to his standard.

Chromia added, eagerly. "Exactly. It's no ding on her, but she's just not cut out for it."

"But she's already halfway decided to switch to repairs." Cliffjumper looked at his new hand, waiting for its latest enameling.

"And we want to encourage that," Arcee said. "But if we do it too obviously, well..." She grinned. "You know how much you love being told what to do."

Cliffjumper grinned, sheepishly. Yeah. Well. "So you just want me to like...encourage her."

Blue and pink heads nodded in unison. Always a little...unsettling to see the complete synchrony. Sometimes it made Cliffjumper feel he was missing out. He felt he missed out on a lot sometimes. There was a lot he didn't get about his fellow soldiers—their bonds with each other, the trauma they somehow felt about their mission. "Yes."

Chromia added, "It's sad, how we've grown apart. At one time, we were...literally...one, you know?"

"It's best this way, though," Arcee said. "We are three times as useful." A smile, but it was a little thin.

Cliffjumper nodded back. He had no way of really understanding what they'd been through, and he hoped it was enough like empathy that at least he realized it and didn't try to pretend he understood. "Sure. I've got some refit work coming up later. Be glad to talk to her."

"Oh, and no word of this, okay?" Chromia asked, earnestly.

"Of course not." Easy enough. "She's been through a lot." He figured that seemed the right thing to say. "I'll be careful."

"She has been through a lot," Arcee frowned. "And you have no idea how much it kills us that we couldn't share it with her."

"And she's shut herself off from us." Chromia added, sadly. "We'll do anything to get her back."


	22. Unmasking

22. Unmasking

June hated this point in the semester. The mad rush to the finish, clogged with students who had slacked all semester suddenly made aware of the fact they would most likely fail and begging for 'extra credit.' Right. Why should I make more work for myself to make you an 'extra credit' assignment when you haven't even bothered to turn in the regular credit? She was running late to go home, the thick folder of papers she had yet to grade jammed in her bag dragging down her left shoulder. She just wanted to get home, get a beer, and then maybe think about grading. Maybe. Thinking about thinking about grading. And not think about that stupid project she'd wasted so much time on, or how much less of a grading backlog she'd have if she hadn't dropped everything last week for it.

Oh well, glad that was over now, and she hadn't wasted any more time.

She climbed the small hill to the faculty parking lot, hating once again the idiocy that made her wear heels when she taught lecture classes. Almost to her car where she could dump this damn bag. She hefted the strap back up on her shoulder as she crested the top of the hill and stopped, staring at the police car that blocked her battered Honda in its spot.

Great. Have to yell at a cop, too, she thought, sourly. Maybe he'd get the hint and move. Blocking someone in a spot was illegal. Harassment or something. She glared at the officer behind the wheel—he was just sitting there, staring at her like she was a criminal or something already. Uh, no, jerkball, she thought. Blocking my spot. Standing between me and my oatmeal stout. That is not cool.

The window rolled down as she walked past, and she could feel the officer's eyes on her. Great. A creep. Her day was getting better and better. "Miss Trevelyan," he said. His voice was deep and rough, like an old sergeant major's.

"Doctor," she snapped, stopping. Normally she didn't really care about the title thing. No biggie, but with Officer Johnny Lawdog here? He'd damn well give her some respect. She'd done not a damn thing wrong.

"Doctor Trevelyan," the voice corrected. "Get into the car." After a moment, enough to hint it had entirely slipped his mind, he added, "Please." Yes, public servant, she thought, sourly. Nice to remember common courtesy.

"Am I under arrest?" She did not have a great relationship with cops, stemming from her…oh, unfortunate tendency to drive well over any posted speed limits. She took it as a matter of course when she got caught, and paid her fines meekly, but had always been a little unimpressed with the highhanded attitudes of the bullies in blue.

"No."

"Then, thanks but no." She pressed the auto unlock on her car key and the Honda's locks obediently popped open. Pop. They locked just before she could open the back door to drop in her teaching bag. Huh. Hand must have slipped. Of course, with the cop staring at her. Why not look like an idiot in front of a stranger, right? That's how her life worked. She popped the locks again. Again, they jumped right back down.

"Get in the car, Doctor Trevelyan." Not that the voice had sounded pleasant or friendly before, but definitely not now.

"Why?"

A pause. The officer looked blank. Like someone had unplugged his brain or something. Yeah. Typical cop. "It's an emergency, Doctor Trevelyan. I'll take you there."

The anger squelched. Emergency? "Who? Is it my father? Is he okay?" Damn. She knew she should have taken away his license. She just didn't have the heart to take that away from him. But now she couldn't shake the image of his old Ford pickup, front end wrapped around an oak tree. Oh god.

"Get in the car. I'll take you there." The delivery was a little off. Almost like it was rehearsed. She hesitated, but…Dad.

"Backseat?" she asked.

The door popped open and she threw her bag and herself in without thinking. Until…the door swung shut after her. She grabbed the handle and yanked, uselessly. Dammit! Right. It made sense that someone in the back of a police car shouldn't be able to just hop on out, but…was the auto open/close thing new? It must be.

The car rolled smoothly toward the parking lot's exit. She leaned forward. "Can you tell me now? Is it my father? Is he okay?" She started trying to calculate how long it would take to get to the hospital. Which hospital? What if he'd been burned—would he have gotten to the burn center in time?

The officer didn't respond, the car just kept rolling onto the road that circled the campus.

"Hey! Tell me something, please!"Tell me how bad it is, she thought. I can start coping with it if I know how bad it is. He must be dead. Oh god, he must be dead and I've been arguing with some kid over a C+ and my father was dying….!

She clutched for the officer's shoulder…and her hand went right through it.

Frag. You suck at brilliant plans, Barricade, he thought. Can't even blame the new frame for this one. Damn squishies. Seriously. Bad enough to have one in the interior, worse to h ave it moving around, but…she put the hand right through the holo. There was just no need for that. And if there was something even worse than that, it would have to be the shrill sounds the human made, and the flailing and kicking at his door panels. He slammed on the brakes. "Stop!" he bellowed.

The human female stopped. Which was good. She'd been punching into the front seat. Which was not so good. And would leave a mark.

"Who are you!" she howled, her red hair flopping around her face, the little silver thing that had been holding it back sliding down over one ear. "Let me go!"

"No." Come on, Barricade. You can handle this in a mech. You can handle a human. It's just that you don't normally have a mech freaking out, you know, inside you. The flat denial shocked her into stillness.

"No?" she echoed. She looked wildly around the interior, lunging over the front seat for the door handle. Ow. She she yanked on it, hard, until she finally accepted that it wasn't going to release.

"Done now?" he drawled.

Her eyes flashed angrily. "Who are you? What the hell's going on?" Yeah, right, Barricade thought. The old 'I'll yell like I have authority' thing. Because that like…always works. For some reason, he felt a surge of control. He was almost in a good mood. This he could handle.

"Doctor Trevelyan," he began.

"Yes," she snapped. "We'd established that already." Her eyes flitted around the interior. "Show yourself."

"Uh, kind of seeing me."

"Right. Where are you? What do you want?"

"I," he said, "am right here. You want the ten digit grid? As for what I want." He activated the small screen on the monitor. Thank Primus his alt mode had so much built in tech. He flashed a shot of the first building he'd sent in the photo attachments to the email. And his username. She was grasping for control. Some way to at least comprehend the situation. Which was, he admitted, pretty bizarre. Fairly unique in the span of Decepticon/human relations. Let her have a handle on the situation. Let her figure it out for herself.

She paled. "You?" Her head twitched, looking desperately for some point of focus, her red waves bobbling. "The emails?"

He blinked the monitor. "Less unsettling with the hologram?" Give her a choice. Give her an option. He'd had none on the Dreadnought. There was no need for that here.

"Yeah, uh, no. What you really look like."

Huh. He paused. Well, he hadn't expected that option. But…why not? He activated his hologram to a miniature version of himself. Wow, that was…a little creepy. Me, in me. Pretending to drive me. Like some sort of metaphor or something. "Better?"

He felt her studying his hologram, the alien face, the sharp looking (though immaterial) talons. "Not…really." But he could feel her fear start to ebb. Strange how something to look at soothed these creatures.

"Why'd you stop responding?" She'd been right at the brink of giving him everything he needed. And then cut off. Without a reply. Rude. And just when he'd gotten some promising matches on the lexical search.

"Crackpot theory," she snapped. "I'm not going to be made a fool of no matter how much money's involved."

He couldn't keep the grin out of his voice. "Guess maybe that alien theory wasn't so farfetched, huh?"


	23. Consolation

23. Consolation

Cliffjumper really didn't feel very good about this. But he'd promised and he really didn't like how things were falling out right now. Mostly that they were falling out. He wasn't quite as simplistic as Sideswipe: while he understood Sideswipe's outrage, because all of this was blurring the nice crisp black and white lines Sideswipe liked to keep—good, bad; enemy, friend—what was most important was keeping Autobots together. They couldn't afford to break down. Especially not right now. The humans, he admitted, he wasn't too fond of. And Vortex's assault had simply reminded him of something he'd somehow let himself forget—that the enemy's values were entirely incompatible. Firing on injured and unarmed mechs. Cons did that. Not Autobots. He'd talk to Flareup. Get her back on track.

He stepped into the repair hangar, still feeling a little guilty about what he was about to do. It was right, he knew it, but it felt…sneaky.

Ratchet nodded gruffly at a repair frame and went back to inputting data into his portable console.

The first snag. Fantastic. "Uhhh, Flareup around?" Cliffjumper asked.

Ratchet looked up, his expression somewhat surprised. "I can get her if you want."

Now or never time, Cliffjumper. "Yeah. You don't mind, do you?" Had Ratchet been there when he'd agreed to help Flareup talk about…you know, what happened? He forgot. Slaggin' head injury.

Ratchet gave a half-hearted snort. "Mind that someone's not on my caseload?" He flicked a button to comm Flareup. "Doing okay?"

"Me? I'm fine." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Been through it before."

"Your own weapon?"

Yeah, the gas-glass grenade had been a new experience and not one Cliffjumper wanted to repeat. Still, he was online and functional and wasn't about to complain.

Flareup rolled through the open door, forestalling any sort of uncomfortably self-reflective response Cliffjumper might have blurted. "Ratchet?" she asked. Her two-colored optics—still more than a little unsettling—flicked over Cliffjumper. "Hey," she said, neutrally, guardedly.

Ratchet jutted his chin at Cliffjumper. "He needs some machining on his face."

Flareup rolled back a few feet. "Ratchet, you know I'm not that good at machining. I mean,…Prowl?"

Ratchet's optics almost crackled at her. "You need the practice, then, don't you?" Even Cliffjumper was hard-pressed to tell if Ratchet were amused or angry.

The mismatched optics tilted, worriedly. "I'm not good at this," she said, hesitantly. "I don't want to hurt him."

Cliffjumper strode forward, grabbing her by one wrist. "Only one way to get better. And frag. You can't hurt me." He flashed a cocky smile. It dimmed after a klik. "Please?"

"Sure." She allowed him to lead her to the repair frame, almost reflexively opening the tool cabinet. "You're feeling better?" she asked blandly.

"Ready to fight," he said, then halted. Way to blow the mission, CJ. He grimaced, sheepishly. "Uhh, not like I'm going to get all your hard work all shot up again."

She smiled, softly. "Yes you are, Cliffjumper. Because that's who you are."

And who are you? he wanted to ask her. But he couldn't. He let her get started, tilting his head to one side to allow her to access the underside of his jaw with the fine spinning machining tool. The moment stretched, awkwardly. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so awkward if he'd not had a covert mission to try to keep track of. "What was it like?" he blurted. Oh, fantastic. That's just….ugh.

"The Nemesis?"

"Repairs there." He didn't want to force her to talk about something too awful. Though…talking about repairs was probably awful enough.

She shrugged. "They do it differently. Repair bots do all the work. Tiny things. Barely sentient."

Cliffjumper craned his head to look at her. "Is that creepy?" He imagined it would be.

"Actually," she said, contemplatively, "it was kind of nice. You didn't have to worry about trying to look tough in front of anyone."

The statement took him by surprise. Is…is that what she thought of him? More than that, is that what she thought of herself? "You're plenty tough," he said.

She snorted. "No I'm not. I can't handle it." Her hand tightened over the machining tool. She hesitated, and then dove back into work on the neck actuators.

"You can handle it just fine," he said.

She shook her head, adamant, her optics focused on her work. "The last two battles, what good was I?"

He frowned. "You patched me, for one thing. Wouldn't be here today without you." He didn't forget that. Wasn't about to let her, either. All the more proof, he thought, that this switch in position was perfect for her. "And at the other one, yeah I wasn't there, but, you held your own."

"I got captured!"

"So did Ironhide. Does that make him less of a warrior?" Cliffjumper felt strangely proud that this counterargument sprang to his vocalizer. Until he remembered he was supposed to be talking her into changing specializations. Frag.

"He came out of it better," she said.

"Are you so sure of that?"

She faltered.

"I mean, can you ever actually measure that? One mech's suffering against another?" Cliffjumper shrugged. Ironhide had his own issues from the captivity. Especially that nothing bad had happened to him. It would eat at Cliffjumper; he was sure it was eating at Ironhide. Whoa, though. Drifting off mission. He was supposed to be talking her into switching. Doing Arcee and Chromia a favor. How to bring this back? Ah! "Besides, it's brought you here, right?"

She shrugged, turning to get the air hose to blow out metal shavings. "Running away."

"I don't think so. Everyone's got a different path."

"Chromia can handle it."

"You're not her. You're you."

"I am her. Don't you remember? We're the same. That...awful experiment."

Cliffjumper shrugged guiltily. She pulled back, thinking she'd hurt him. "Sorry. I remember." He forced himself to look in her optics. "But you're not identical, you know."

"Yes, I know. Different colors. Different weapons."

Cliffjumper shook his head. "No, I mean, there's like...no way you could be all the same. Unless you've had exactly the same experiences. The same memories." They didn't have her captivity, for one thing. Maybe, he thought, that's what bothered them. That she had gone somewhere they could not follow.

"We have the same memories. Of being one."

"Yeah, but since then." He shifted uncomfortably. He wasn't very good at this sort of thing. And he tried to think of it as a virtue that he recognized it, even though it gaped awkwardly in front of him. "I mean. Ever think that maybe that...what happened to you split you in three? Each of you got different abilities, right? Just because yours are different doesn't make them less valuable." Just because I can't understand them...

She stopped. "You think so? Really?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "We've got a lot of warriors. If you can bring something else...well, we need that, too. Not everyone can be as calm as you were under fire when you were fixing me." He felt a flush of relief. Oh good. He was actually managing to bring this back on topic. He smiled, the new metal plates squeaking over each other. "Not everyone can be as good as me," he forced a joke.

She smiled back. It was tentative, but genuine. "So...I should do what I believe, right?"

"Absolutely." He relaxed. Until she asked her next question.

"Cliffjumper? How do you feel about the humans?"

Slag. He had a flashback to Sideswipe on the beach. "They need us. They don't want to admit it yet." He looked to the door, almost guiltily. Ratchet was still deep in his datapad. If he were overhearing them, he was doing a damn good job of pretending not to. "You know. Sometimes it's not easy to admit your weaknesses."

She tilted her head. "That's your read on the humans?"

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "They're throwing a tantrum."

"What would you do?"

"Me? I listen to Optimus." Cliffjumper was a soldier. Politics were not his bag. Ethics were not his bag. His bag was big and heavy and bristling with weaponry.

"But..." She stopped herself. What? Cliffjumper wished he knew the right thing to say. He had the feeling he was losing her. "Never mind," she said, softly.

The grating whirr of the machining tool filled the time and space between them. He felt the tight vibrations along his cheek armor. Flareup's face was less than a handspan's away from his. So close and yet he could feel the distance between them growing. And he was powerless to stop it.

"Hey, Flare?" he asked, softly. Doubting it was the right thing to say, but, needing to say something, wanting to get back to where they'd been. "How do you feel about the 'cons, now?"

She refused to meet his gaze. "I...hated them. For a long time. But now...I can't see that we're all that different." She glided the tool across a scored part of his facial armor. The sound buzzed his audio.

Cliffjumper felt anger blaze across his systems, despite his efforts to calm it down. "We're nothing like them!" He jerked away from the sanding tool.

"But we are!" The tool spun between them as they stared at each other, each on the brink of emotion neither wanted to feel. "We embrace violence. We've lost our way, Cliffjumper."

"We have not lost our way. Optimus..." He stopped as she cut him off.

"Optimus is not infallible." She stopped, stunned at her own words. "I'm...just saying that ideals are hard to live up to."

"Yeah? Well, who else, huh? Who else has fallen from your ideals?" He couldn't keep the anger from his voice. It was like...blasphemy to talk about Optimus that way. If he were not right...where were they all? "And who made you the judge?"

She gaped at him, the tool dropping from her numb fingers. It whined, biting into the floor as she raced from the hangar.


	24. Shifting Boundaries

24. Shifting Boundaries

Nemesis

Flatline found it easier to remain philosophical about the irritants that are military commanders when he was this close to a breakthrough. It was of course, contradictory, and he did resent the time it took to soothe their egos, answer their queries. But at the same time part of him did not mind prolonging the delicious tremor—the closest he came to physical pleasure—at the brink of sure discovery. Physical pleasure was fleeting, unreliable. But this…was something more. Stable, permanent. And he stood at the threshold—even as he felt a certain discomfort at having to resort to metaphor and all the imprecision that came along with it—of discovery.

Before him, in a tank bubbling thickly with viscous nutrient-energon, lay the repaired cortical systems of the Fallen. As near as he could reconstruct them, of course. Several of the filaments had been of a substance that defied analysis—not metal, not crystal, but something other. And a few of the smaller components he had been unable to repack in their former configurations, but…that surely didn't matter. All that was required now was the simple jump start charge he had done before on the female Autobot. Simple enough. And yes, there had been…issues with how that experiment turned out, but those issues were beyond the parameters of his study. He'd been interested in spark splitting. His involvement, his interest, and thus, he thought, his responsibility, had ended there. In fact, if he thought about it, the only reason that had gone wrong as well was…the interference of some bloated-ego commander demanding an update.

Irony?

Flatline wasn't a fan.

He did one last check—methodical despite his excitement. Precision, in all things. The connections were solid. All of the wires well soldered, the system itself grounded. Yes. Perfect. It was even attached to a freestanding computer—he could not give it a face or a body, but he had to give it some interface: a way to ask questions, to get them answered.

He flicked the switch to the microgenerator, one of his smaller hands delicate on the rheo. He leaned over, his visor flipping to a scan mode: testing for bad connections, for overheating, for any signs of failure. Nothing. Yes, he thought, as he raised the rheo, sending more current into the connections. You're in there, with all of your secrets. Come out. Open to me.

His teeth ground against each other in a tense kind of joy. His optics flicked up at the monitor, waiting for some kind of result. Wake up, he coaxed it. Reboot to the new system. Yes, it's probably a bit primitive compared to what you're used to, but not every mech has a chance, literally, for life after death.

Give me the secrets of death, Flatline thought. Give me the secrets of life. I want to know….

The rheo crackled in his hand, sparks flying, stinging into his palm. Flatline muttered an imprecation. Faulty equipment. He reached to unhook the positive lead from the Fallen's cortex when it crackled again. The burst of electricity made his hand servos constrict, tightening his grip around the lead, refusing to let him let go. He was helpless as current poured through him—not just electricity like a hot acid burn, but a strange current, a dark presence that entered his mind, pushed him aside as though he simply did not matter.

He felt…invaded. Violated. He struggled to fight back, to even release his fingers from the current. Below him, he could see his careful work at reconstructing the Fallen's cortex shiver, and melt, staining the nutrient goo with rust and brown. Colors of waste and ruination.

_Colors,_ a voice said in his mind, _of domination. Power. Control._

Skywarp frowned, chiming in through the Ready Room closest to Aerial Planning. Vortex had told him this was where he'd most likely find Starscream, on duty hours. He didn't want to comm ahead—well, he did, but he refused to allow himself to. There was still, in the back of his cortex, a worm of doubt, a worm that worried that Starscream had transgressed, was planning a power grab, and he'd have to act. Better to find out sooner than later, he thought. Better able to damage control the earlier you catch it. Better you can protect him; protect the Seekers. What they once stood for.

The door whooshed open, Skywarp stepping through faster than usual, intent on taking a flash of whatever Starscream was working on. It felt low and dirty, but it was for the best. Oh, the war had ruined all of their ethics. Forced them to these dilemmas—spying on one's Trine. Choosing between one's cause and an individual. Awful stuff. Skywarp hated it as much as he hated that he had gotten so good at it.

Starscream hunched in front of a tactical simulation. Tunguska. Again. Revisiting old failures. Skywarp got to watch his entrance as sharp, descending vector, got to watch target and ammunition readouts, rack up and down, swiftly. Had he blown so much ammunition? So fast? He always blanked in combat, shutting down, letting something...other take over. Starscream was so absorbed—what was he seeing?—that he didn't even move as Skywarp approached. He waited. Nothing.

"Victory," he said, quietly.

"It is not a victory. Not a defeat, however, either." Starscream looked up, his optics dimmed with weariness. As if he'd been staring at the battle simulation for cycles. "Why are you here, Skywarp?"

Something was eating at him. Something. Skywarp's processor raced—the last time he'd seen Starscream, Barricade was pulling him aside. Frag. What had the grounder told him?

"I am...having trouble locating someone."

"Doubtless you can access the private comm freq list." A little pushback. Deliberately unhelpful.

Skywarp summoned patience, as if pulling it out of the air. "I have tried that."

"Barricade. You wish to know where Barricade is."

Skywarp blinked. "No." Well, yes, his cortex said, adding that to the list of other leads he had to track down. "I was looking for Dead End."

Starscream sat up. "Dead End?" He said the name as though it were entirely inconceivable that anyone would be looking for him. Or that it were some sort of deep perversion. The 'why' shimmered unspoken in the air between them.

"He had...expressed some concerns." Missing drones, mostly. Skywarp had confirmed that there had been a batch. And that it had...disappeared. And Dead End's memory backups? Different from his running memory. Something was up and it had required someone big to pull it off. Was it Starscream?

"Concerns?" Skywarp felt a raw discomfort at the way Starscream tensed. Oh, frag. No. Frag. Don't tell me you're behind this. He cycled a slow vent. Now or never. Show your hand? Where are your loyalties, Skywarp? To Starscream? To the cause? Whom do you serve?

I serve the truth. "Dronelings have gone missing. An entire batch, at least."

There was no feigning the look of shock and dismay on the bronze jet's face. Skywarp felt a rush of relief, like an effervescent tide. "And Dead End?"

"I can't find him."

"You think...he is behind it?"

"Of course not." Skywarp let his optics drift to the battle simulation. "Have you looked at the aircraft carrier raid as well?" Dead End had acquitted himself well enough there, Skywarp thought. Had Starscream seen it?

"Yes." Starscream's talons flicked across the console board, and the familiar graphic overlay of the raid splayed across the screen. "If we had responded more quickly..." There was some deeper regret in his tone Skywarp couldn't read. A distance he couldn't manage to bridge. Something had come between them. When? How?

"We rescued him. He is functional." Skywarp had seen it himself.

"We might have spared him...some..." Starscream's voice trailed off, as if aware he were revealing some weak sentiment. Skywarp nodded. Yes. It went against their megacycles of training to actually...care, didn't it? How well he knew the feeling, knew the struggle. Even in his mission, even in his investigations, it was hard not to get personal. It was something he'd always struggled with. Either you cared, and became ineffectual; or you didn't care, and became a monster. Skywarp's own solution was as simple, and brutal, as flipping a switch. Off, on. Only sometimes...the switch didn't work. Like now.

"We got him back. And we have the energon from the Tunguska raid." Starscream's brow furrowed at the statement—seeing it for an empty blandishment, perhaps? Skywarp hadn't meant it that way. Was Starscream so inured to insult that he read even bald fact as a veiled condescension?

"The energon," Starscream murmured. "The dronelings." As if putting something together in his head that he really did not want to see fit. He tilted his head to Skywarp, looking directly at him for the first time. "There is something," he said, slowly, "I want to show you."


	25. Tarnished Values

Dear FFN i hate how you eat my hard hiatus breaks. so very, very much.

25. Tarnished Values

Ironhide seethed, directing the pressure hose into the interior cabling of his legs. The cool water—not proper cleanser at all and yet another accommodation made to the human limitations—dribbled through the cables, sluicing down his servo-housings. This was ridiculous. Actually, he had other words for it, but thinking of those old words brought with it the old memories. Places he'd rather not visit right now: The 'con army, run, it seemed, by slogans. It had been stability for him, once. He had clung to their curt aphorisms as though they were the laws of nature. Until he'd joined the Autobots and…they no longer worked. The world no longer reduced down to a set of rules in a training manual, or combat algorithms. The Autobots had introduced him to values, ethics, things outside of the rules, inside his own cortex. Free will being first among those—that he could choose his side, choose his values.

He had chosen, but he saw now that he had merely chosen to substitute one external rule for another: the old field manuals for Optimus Prime's leadership. He'd never really thought on his own. He'd never really had to: he was so glad to turn over his skills to a cause that struck his spark as right that he never questioned. Everything was black and white.

Until now. Until Prime stopped giving answers. Ironhide had misstepped before, been corrected before. He had taken them with all the stoicism of an old soldier being given a dressing down by a wiser commander. But now…Optimus wasn't speaking. The team needed him and where was he?

With the humans. Pursuing some alliance that Ironhide had realized that he didn't believe in. He'd always blamed his differences with…well, his primal difference. That unlike the others, at root, at base code, he was one of the 'cons. He'd always granted that as his default—'I am thinking like a Decepticon and that is wrong.' But this time, this place, he could not feel it. He could not feel the same pang of dismay that he had somehow transgressed. This time, Optimus was wrong.

And it made him wonder how many other times Optimus had been wrong, how many other times he had simply handed himself over to fights he wouldn't have believed in, wouldn't have willingly laid down his life for.

No. I would give my life for these mechs around me, he thought, even if nothing else. But then, a susurrus voice in his cortex said, you said that before Meta. The mechs, if not the cause. Your old refrain. A traitor's refrain, and worth how much?

Ironhide looked up from the open wash facilities, across the sunbaked pavement. Already cracked. Already bleached under the tropical sun. Showing signs of age. Everything around here aged so fast, it seemed. Two years and…countries had new leaders, humans looked entirely different. It was almost too fast to follow.

Where would their loyalties be in two more of their orbital cycles? Five? What's the point of allying with them, not only if they're not grateful, but if they change so fast? What games would they have to play then? What concessions to efficacy would they be forced to bend to in the name of preserving human autonomy?

It wasn't, he didn't think, much of a stretch to imagine that they'd still be here in another two years. Not…hobbled as they were.

Something had to give. And one of them was going to be Ironhide, if he didn't find a way to fight back. And soon.

[***]

Barricade grunted, deciding that military personnel, human or mech, were way better to interrogate than civilians. Or maybe it was the females who were more difficult. All he knew was that with Sternburgh he didn't have to worry about having his center console clawed. Then again, he'd never had the soldier in his interior. Sternburgh, and the Witwicky, had always been outside. Note to self, Barricade: no squishies inside. Ever.

"Are you done yet?"

"Have you let me go yet?" she retorted.

"Look. This doesn't have to be this hostile."

"Kidnapping? That's pretty hostile." She swiped through his hologram again. No matter how many times she did it and he gave no reaction other than the hologram shimmering, it seemed her gut reflex. Maybe…not as smart as she initially appeared.

"If you want hostile, Dr Trevelyan, I'll be more than happy to show you some so you can know the difference."

"Oh, you just bring it!" She dropped back into the seat, kicking at the seatback in front of her. Fraggin' OW.

He slammed on his brakes, throwing her against the seat back. "Brought enough?"

She howled, rocking back, her hands clutching at her nose. Blood trickled from between her fingers. Tears sprang from her eyes. He watched impassively as she curled into a ball, making pathetic wet noises. He began to get…a little nervous. What if he'd shorted her processor and she couldn't think straight anymore? Or speak?

"Hey, come on. Shut up. Not that bad," he said, brusquely.

"Shut up yourself," she said, blood and tears sputtering from her face, spattering his upholstery. "That hurt."

Uhh, yeah? And the fact that she'd been doing her damnedest to hurt him? Didn't even seem to register. He let the complaint hang there, so she knew he wasn't going to pick it up.

"Why won't you just let me go?" she said, finally. "Honestly. I don't have anything you want." She rummaged in one of those bags she seemed incapable of functioning without for something to hold over her leaking nose.

"You do."

"What? Please. Just…let me go." She looked, he realized, exhausted, her face pale under the blood and the splotchiness from tears.

"I need your theories about the cryptoglyph sites."

"I'm a nobody."

"You know the somebody's theories. You have your own."

"What's your theory?" she countered. She lifted the thing from her nose, looking at it, breathing carefully.

"My theory?"

"You have one. Let's hear it."

Well, this was a sudden change. Which would have been completely maddening if it hadn't been taking the conversation in the right direction. He wished the Autobots the best with these unstable little vermin. "You can figure it out. Extra terrestrial origin."

Her eyes glittered suddenly. "Can you read it?"

"Not…quite."

"But a little? You can?" She sat up excitedly. Wait, was it going to be this easy? He had a whole bunch of devious mental tricks to play on her and she just wanted his ideas? How much did he trust her?

Not at all. But then again, he didn't have much choice. His only real concern should be what she could do with what he told her. And all he had to do to limit that was to isolate her while he was using her.

And kill her when he was done.

"Yes," he said, slyly. "I'll be glad to show you what I've come up with."


	26. OpenShut

26. Open/Shut

Diego Garcia

Sternburgh settled his crutches on the floor beside him. He'd decided against trying the stairs to the gantry—stairs, especially open-risered metal ones, were not worth the risk to his dignity or body. So they'd settled him on a battered grey folding chair, and did their best not to tower over him. It was…interesting, he thought. How they tried so hard to be unintimidating.

Optimus almost sprawled himself flat trying to not be so obviously huge. Which would have worked if a) his head wasn't already larger than Sternburgh to begin with, and b) it didn't put him in such a ludicrous parody of a kowtow.

"I do have a neck," Sternburgh said. "It does swivel upward."

"I was trying not to make you self-conscious," Optimus said, rising to his feet.

Oh really? Sternburgh thought. "So singling me out like that isn't going to make me feel self-conscious?"

Optimus faltered, his grey metal plates furrowed in an expression of confusion. Sternburgh masked a laugh. "It was not my intent, Master Sergeant."

Sternburgh shrugged. "No harm done." He'd proved his point, to himself. The Autobots, unlike the one Decepticon he'd known, were almost achingly attempting to please. To appear non-threatening. He had to remind himself to stay on edge—lambskin often can just be a cover for the wolf underneath. In a way, with Barricade, he'd known what he was getting. Strange how the bad guys seemed to be more honest, huh?

But friendly-up worked on him: it would work on these Autobots, who wouldn't even recognize the power play that had just happened.

"Right. I won't waste your time, of course," Sternburgh began. "Beyond, first, thanking you for meeting with us." He nodded back over his shoulder where Yee and the Planck kid stood: Yee in her Army Poster Girl position of parade rest; Max hunched and vaguely queasy.

"You have concerns?" Prowl asked. "About your future?"

Sternburgh could practically hear Max blanch. "We'll get to those," Sternburgh said, blandly. No, robots, he thought. I set the agenda here. He knew why he was being this aggressive: what happens when you're desperately out of control? You grasp an any semblance of control no matter how petty. And it was maybe useful to find how far they'd bend. For someone they could squash without thinking. Fuck, Sternburgh thought, looking down at the tacked-up empty leg of his uniform, not like I could even run away.

"Right now our concern is information. Have you been debriefed?" He grinned at the odd look that ran over Prowl's face. Guess not.

"We have heard about the Dreadnaught," Optimus said, carefully.

Sternburgh shrugged. "Have you been debriefed about my mission?"

Another uncomfortable look, this time exchanged between Prowl and Optimus. "No," Optimus said. "We understand you were to take charge of Barricade."

Sternburgh's moment to falter. Well, what the hell. Let a little show. "Yes. Until DARPA got their hands on him."

"DARPA?" Sternburgh watched Optimus try to bluff. Suuuuure, you know all about DARPA. "For what?"

"The weapon," Prowl murmured. "Vortex had mentioned they had a weapon."

Optimus nodded. "Lennox had indicated something similar." A sharp glance from Prowl that Sternburgh almost grinned at. Oh, apparently Optimus hadn't shared that information with his own. Interesting.

"Yeah," Max spoke up. "They were testing an offshoot of HAARP."

Oh their blank look was almost delicious. Sternburgh would have enjoyed it more if he hadn't needed Max to explain it to him, earlier.

"Max," Sternburgh said, "Explain." So, you know, I don't mess it up, he thought wryly.

Max stepped forward. His hands twisted together from nerves, the knuckles broad and raw and reddish. "HAARP itself is an area effect thing—it messes with the ionosphere by sending pulses of HF band. It's supposed to be able to make storms happen or at least help with subsurface mapping. But this, well, I guess they got the idea of seeing what HAARP transmitters did to, you know, one of you."

Another uncomfortable look between the two Autobots. "And?" Prowl prompted.

"He was…pretty dead." Max hoped not. He didn't really want to think about that, though—he'd helped the enemy. He'd betrayed his side. He rocked from side to side on his feet, finally blurting, "It's like the microwave but in reverse!"

Sternburgh shook his head. Bled nerves, the stupid kid. Still, Sternburgh wasn't much for complaining. He'd been straight up with Max: if Max hadn't done what he did, they'd all have died. Hundreds had been lost—not Max's fault, but the fifty or so who survived owed their lives to the skinny kid. It was not a debt Sternburgh intended to forget.

Max continued, words pouring out of him like a torrent. "It was that lab in New Jersey. They were trying to make a ray gun like you see in all those bad 50s scifi movies, and they kept noticing like sunburns and stuff on their chests and, well, it's just not technology suitable for a gun. This…they started making a range thing and are trying to turn it into a gun."

"A fairly effective gun," Sternburgh added.

"Barricade had to stand there for a while, though," Yee cut in. "It would be useless on the battlefield."

"Unless," Max speculated, "They take that finding and go back and hit that freq into the ionosphere."

Sternburgh tilted his head. Huh. Max hadn't mentioned that. And it was…pretty chilling. That they could basically take an entire area—a city, or a battlefield—and just blast it with what he had seen that weapon do to Barricade. "It would not discriminate," he said, "between Autobot and Decepticon."

"Yes," Optimus said, his voice strained. "That is…alarming news."

"I do not understand, Master Sergeant," Prowl cut in. "One thing: why are you telling us this? Is it not a betrayal of the uniform you wear?"

Was it? Sternburgh didn't think so. He rendered his face impassive. "I have no problems with obliterating an enemy," he said, calmly. "And last I heard, you weren't on that list. The question is, are you ready to be that enemy?"

"We are not your enemy, Master Sergeant," Optimus said. He sounded tired.

"I know that. And you know that. But we have a saying in the Army: bullets don't discriminate."

"This would be," Yee cut in, stepping forward, "this would be the equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb. Think about it. It would be genocide. Every single Cybertronian—good, bad, indifferent—would be dead. I thought you came here because you wanted to live?" Sternburgh smiled at her back. Good old Yee. Her conscience made her a perfect weapon. He clung to his honor with the same tenacity that she clung to her notion of Just War. It was something they'd understood about each other for all these years.

"I do not understand why you…care." Prowl spoke carefully, as if aware his words could seem offensive but unsure of a better way.

"Because maybe some of us want the same thing. You want to live here, in peace, right? Or leave, alive? One or the other. Either way, living's kind of the point?"

"What do you advise?" Optimus asked.

Sternburgh shifted, just enough to reclaim attention. "We're not here to advise. Obviously," he cocked his head, "our advice would be biased. Considering." He caught Prowl's almost-imperceptible nod. "We're just giving you information."

"Why?" Prowl's optics narrowed.

Sternburgh blinked the blink of the innocent. Well, someone who could fake it very, very well. "Why? Because, after all, we're allies."


	27. Feng Shui?

Thanks to all the people who let me know I goofed last week! *facepalm* THIS WEEK, the actual chapter, the first time around!

27. Feng Shui?

This, Barricade thought, was a much more workable arrangement. Oh, they'd had their little 'misunderstandings', like when he allowed Dr Trevelyan to go back into her house to retrieve some of her materials (because they were so evolved, these humans, they hadn't quite gotten to, you know, INTERNAL memory storage), and had intercepted her panicked phone call to the police. Though that phone call had been fun.

But eventually she'd realized that he wasn't going to kill her…yet, and so long as she was useful, and had decided to play nice. It didn't hurt that he was endlessly interested in her research. Apparently finding someone willing to listen to hours on end of one's favorite topic was a rarity.

Yeah, well, he could relate to that part.

Right now, he was peering over her shoulder at the laptop she'd brought into her garage. Above them, a map of the world had been attached to the pegboard walls. A human's map, meaning it was more about political boundaries and names than important things like elevation, chemical base, and meteorology. Still, it was a place to start. It was…something.

"So, what do they mean?" she asked. It said…something that she tilted her head to meet his gaze like they were friends or something. Delusional. But play along, Barricade.

He shrugged, aware that the movement was massive compared to her size. The tendril of self-hate still teased at him, making him edgy, uncomfortable. But that way…was not progress. That was looking back. This was a future where maybe he wouldn't simply re do the same mistakes he'd done before. "Random morphemes," he said. "Can't tell unless they're in the right order." Sixteen of them they'd found, petroglyphs carved in human habitation. Strange how there were none carved on regular rocks. Maybe there were. Maybe they just hadn't found them yet. Which meant…they'd never be able to piece the right order.

"Order?" June frowned. She looked up at the map; glyphs had been pinned on their locations. "Left to right?"

Barricade considered. Grunted. "Maybe." If so, they had pieces missing.

"Right to left? A lot of early human cultures read right to left or up and down for that matter."

Same thing. He shifted, his hydraulics hissing as he stood up. "Makes no fraggin' sense. Why leave a message? To who? What for? Why make it so hard to figure out?"

"Because they don't want the wrong people figuring it out."

His head whipped to her. "What?" Which means they knew we'd be back. Which means….

She put the laptop down on the upturned cardboard box in front of her. "Well, think about it. The whole point of riddles and codes and such. If you're militarized, you know about cryptography and stuff, right?"

"Mathematical encryption," he said. "What are you talking about?"

"Yes, we had that too. Enigma codes and all. But the best kinds of codes are the ones you can leave lying out in the open and no one has any clue what they're even looking at. I mean…thousands of years these petroglyphs have been there. I kind of wonder if even the original carvers knew what they meant." She tilted her head. "Or if they were tool carved. God I'd KILL to get my hands on one for analysis."

You, he thought, talk too much. "Separated this far, probably no one knew. Except…whoever told them to do it." He did a quick search. Yes, he could probably find one of the glyphs—one in a backwater geological museum two states away. If it came to that. He didn't see what it would add, but….

"Which means there was something in control, telling each civilization what to do." She pushed to her feet, hands swiping at her jeans. She was overtly uncomfortable, still, despite the evidence of her own eyes, with the idea of alien influence. But even she was beginning to come around. Slowly. Nothing like, you know, talking to one of them to start to get through the apparently impermeable skeletal framing they had over their wetware.

Barricade studied the pictures pinned to the map, tracing a connecting line between two with his talons. Those together would mean…far…travel? "Watch it be some stupid message like 'Autobots suck'."

She laughed, even though she had no idea what he was talking about. "Probably not. That's a lot of effort and coordination for some sort of permanent prank that someone might never even find."

Well, that was…almost reassuring.

She came over to stand by him. Well, beside his hip, apparently. She watched his talon trace random lines between shapes. "That's it!" she exclaimed. Barricade froze, his talon halfway between one spot in an island called England and another spot in a placed called Dordogne. "Look!"

"I am looking," he snapped. "Trying to make this make sense."

"It does! Well, kinda." She stepped back, turning to the computer. "Look, you're going to think this is the flakiest thing ever, but you made me sit through that whole alien contact thing, so, you deserve this."

"Alien contact…thing," he echoed, sourly.

"Okay," she said, ignoring him entirely. "I only know about this because my sister is…well, a little out there. One of those 'I can talk to angels and they're pink' people." She shuddered. He blinked. No idea what she was talking about. But…whatever. Just get to the point, he thought. "She did this whole thing when she came to advise me about buying this house or not. Some nutball mix of feng shui and this stuff. Went around with a set of dowsing rods and everything."

Get. To. The. Point. Barricade thought. He shifted his weight, his limb hydraulics giving what he hoped was a warning hiss.

She looked up from where she'd bent over the keyboard. "Yeah, sorry. Just trying to say, don't blame the crazy on me. But…ley lines."

He glared. He was not going to…stoop to asking.

"Ley lines," she repeated. She squinted a bit, as if a little uncomfortable. "This belief that there are these, like, power lines running underground. Not like electricity or something, but, you know, goofy crystal hugging, woo-woo power. More sensibly, telluric forces. Possibly."

No, he did not know. He gave a low growl. "Sounds entirely idiotic."

"Probably is, but the line you were tracing just now is one of them. One of the big ones. St Michael's line."

"What is your point?"

"Well, it's probably stupid, too, but if you are trying to figure out an order, and the sensible ones don't make any sense, you should try the nonsensical ones." She picked up the laptop, pulling the power cord from the back, carrying it over to him. The screen showed a mass of bright intersecting lines.

"Stupid," he muttered, but did a flashcapture of the image and magnified it, overlaying it onto their map. He could feel her staring at him as he shunted his processing to removing all the lines that didn't intersect their glyph sites. "Frag," he swore. It…worked. Each glyph was on one of the lines, and if he traced them in order…(another pause as his processor ran through the combinations)…. He rocked back a step, surprise making him lose his control on his emotions. "It's a space bridge."


	28. Irony's Maw

Sorry for those who thought last chapter was a bit wobbly. I know. It was. Trying to make Bay!canon make any sort of continuous sense...is haaaaaard! But here on out, things pick up.

Warning: canon character death.

28. Irony's Maw  
Nemesis, Flatline's Laboratory

So, Dead End, he thought, this is how it ends. Everything. Your ridiculous fantasy about reuniting with your gestalt, gone. Your even more ridiculous notion that you could solve the mystery of what happened to your droneling batch? Over. Frag. Your entire life: Done. That's it. It's over. All the hopes and delusions you had about the future? All those regrets and pangs about the past? Currently having a head on collision with reality here.

Reality was cold. As in the cold metal table under him, and the skirls of cold vapor drifting across his field of vision. Reality was also very, very still, as in his complete inability to move. Not even to refresh his optical lens lubricant, which was a bit painful, optics burning dry from the heat of their filaments. But he had a feeling more pain was to come. Because he recognized the ceiling beams, and he recognized the voice. Flatline. He was never the sanest of mechs—and Dead End considered himself somewhat an expert on the varieties of insanity—but as Dead End lay here, he listened to Flatline have an argument. With himself.

So. Yeah. This is how it ends.

The arguing voice stopped, abruptly. Cutting itself off. Which was…sane. Sure. And then the silver and red face of Flatline popped into his field of vision.

"Congratulations, grounder," Flatline said, uncharacteristically cheerful, "You're going to be part of scientific discovery."

"Great," Dead End said, dully.

Flatline's four arms scrambled over him, like little animals, attaching leads. Dead End tried to shift, squirm, push away. No. His motor cortex had been entirely disabled. "Now, I'm not going to tell you that the world will remember your name. Because I don't know it." A dry laugh.

"Dead End," he heard his own voice, crackling, rusty. How long had he been out?

Another laugh, this one deeper, colder. Strangely more familiar. "That's rather redundant, don't you think?" The larger set of arms reached up to haul something down from the ceiling. It looked like a giant maw, a series of rims inside rims, channels reaching up inside into a narrowing darkness. Flatline adjusted the thing to hover over Dead End's chassis. Dead End's optics rolled to it nervously. He hadn't felt anything, he realized, suddenly, a few kliks ago when Flatline's hands were all over him. Just vague senses of pressure. What was…he…doing?

"Retract your armor," Flatline said, and his optics were flat and crazy and had no depth.

"What? No!"

"That was not," the scientist said, his voice sending a skirl of cold, chillier than the air that drifted around him, right through Dead End's sensornet, "a request." The larger pair of hands tapped meaningfully against Dead End's grille. "Retract."

"Why?" Dead End said, pettily defiant, even knowing how foolish and empty a gesture it was. He expected rage, or irritation. He didn't expect Flatline's cold grin.

"Curiosity," Flatline said, "is an admirable trait, so I shall tell you. Even though cultivating anything in you is rather a loss of effort. We are going to harvest your spark energy." Of course, curiosity is what got Dead End here. Nosing around the podbay, looking, futilely, for any clue of what had happened to his dronelings. That was his last memory in cache.

"W-we?" There was only Flatline in the room. Or so Dead End thought—he hadn't heard anyone else. Yeah, good job, Dead End, focus on the important stuff. Like...numbers and not the whole 'harvest your spark energy' part. Frag, you are an idiot.

"We," Flatline repeated. He tapped his own chassis with his smaller hands. "We who are one . We who hold limitless knowledge. Endless power." The head revolved to Dead End and the optics were...strange. Not flat and red any more, but almost fiery, radiating heat and a strange malevolence. He felt himself drawn into the gaze, like a kind of terrible mesmerism. "Now," the voice said, softly, and it had strange echoes that seemed almost like tentacles, reaching into his cortex, "Retract your armor."

Dead End felt it retract, without conscious thought. He was...powerless to stop it, as though Flatline's voice had reached into him and activated the codes. He felt the plates slide apart with a cold horror. What was happening? Why?

The cold air struck the exposed metal of his spark chamber like a blow, leaving him gasping, his systems suddenly ultracooled. Flatline braced him with one impassive hand, hauling down the maw. Dead End felt, powerlessly, paralyzed, the thing latch onto the rim of his spark chamber, clamps biting down around it. It was the worst thing he could imagine: he was going to die. And not heroically. And he was powerless to do anything other than whimper at the sharp pains of the clamps sinking into the charged metal. No way to resist.

Flatline tapped a button and the world went white with agony as the machine's spinning gears simply bit into, tore into the cover of his spark chamber, flakes of metal and spurts of energon flying, splattering against Dead End's unmoving cheeks, his arms, his legs.

And what's it all been for, Dead End? he asked himself, bitterly. What makes you want to cling onto life so bad, anyway? The hope of seeing the team again? They ran through his mind, shadows of memories, somehow beloved. Wildrider's manic laugh, echoed into Breakdown's paranoid babble, into Drag Strip's sneering, lip-curling boasts, into Motormaster's bellow. The sounds filled him, washed through him like a surge of current. What had he ever brought to the group? What sounds did he contribute? And Wildrider and Drag Strip's flash and colors and speed, and Breakdown's glumness and... It was too much. It was all he'd ever wanted and even as he lay there, it was running ahead of him—moving, while he was stuck. Energy, while he was inertia. Companionship, while he was...dread loneliness.

He hated it, and hated himself, and hated most of all how long this was taking. It had always been for nothing, and his pathetic desire to be with his team again had spread like a pathetic infection till he had somehow tried to fill that need to belong with drones. Can't have what you want? Your team left you? Get dronelings, who are too young and dumb to know what a loser you are, Dead End. Be their hero, their champion, because nobody else wants you. And you failed even at that. UE829? I promised you wouldn't be forgotten. And you shall die, again, with my memory. And everything?...had always been nothing more than a sick farce.

He could feel his energy draining, his limbs going burning, then aching, then numb. He felt it spreading, or rather, he felt himself contracting, drawing in, retreating. One final retreat. One final running away. From the enemy he'd always been.

"Just think," Flatline said, his voice resonating in Dead End's failing audio, "You should be happy. This is what you've always wanted isn't it? To be part of something larger than yourself."


	29. Evasions Fail

29.

"She…what?" Chromia frowned. Cliffjumper's normally cheeky smile was flat, his optics dim with worry. He'd come to tell the other two that he'd more or less (okay, more) blown it with Flareup and apologize.

Arcee shook her head. "She left your repairwork unfinished." As though that were the worst concern.

Cliffjumper shrugged. "I'm not trying to get her in trouble or anything," he said, quickly."I…blew it."

Arcee rolled in a tight circle in front of him, concetrating. "This is unacceptable."

"I thought she enjoyed repair work," Chromia said. "I'm sorry I was so wrong."

"It wasn't the repair work," Cliffjumper said. "I…kind of snapped at her."

"That's hardly an excuse," Arcee retorted.

"Where did she go?" Chromia asked.

Cliffjumper shifted from side to side. "I don't know. I tried to follow her, you know, once I…could." Once he had processed what the frag had gone on, and how he'd set her off, that was. "I couldn't find her."

Arcee settled her face into more consoling lines. "Don't worry, CJ. We'll find her. You didn't have to do this."

"You were doing us a favor."

"Yeah, uh…kind of blew that." He had a feeling he should have known better. Words? Not really his thing. But, yeah. Try to help. This is what it gets you.

"It's not your fault," Arcee said. "She's a little fragile right now. A lot has happened to her."

Well, fair enough. "I'm sorry, anyway. Can I help?"

An exchanged glance between the two. "That's all right," Chromia said. "It's our doing. We'll find her."

"Thanks for telling us," Arcee added, dimly—aware that it was the right thing to say, but finding it hard to summon up any sort of real gratitude. Well, Cliffjumper understood that. You take these gestures for what they're worth—the effort someone put into them rather than the quality of the performance. "For, uh, what it's worth, she was doing a great job."

Chromia forced a smile. Again, more effort than success. Well, nothing could truly bridge the discomfort all around, here. "Thanks. We'll tell her that when we find her."

[****]

Arcee found her in the old residential neighborhood, given over to the creeping grass and weeds for decades now. Flareup had come here blindly, on impulse. Just to get away. She hadn't been trying to hide from anything but more reminders of her failure, more reminders of how nothing made sense any more. She fled—feebly, it was an island, there was only so far she could go—to spare everyone else from her. Picking a fight with Cliffjumper? What had she been thinking?

Obviously, she hadn't been.

She just wanted to get her head straight. She just wanted to remember who she was.

But no.

"Flare?" The worst part of it was, of course, that Chromia's voice was soft, sincere. They'd come for her because they loved her. Missed her. Worried about her. They didn't seem to realize there was nothing they could do. Nothing anyone could do.

"I just need…some time by myself," she said, quietly. Time to figure me out. Figure out why I can't let go of this.

"That's fine," Chromia said. "Cliffjumper told us you were upset: we just wanted to—"

"Cliffjumper. Yes. I-I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to apologize for. Honestly."

"I let him down."

"You've been through a lot. And remember, you helped him so much at Tunguska, right?" Flareup could feel Chromia's effort to be cheerful. She resented it.

Arcee rolled up, the bright sun sheening her pink armor in white, precise shines. Flareup saw the anger on her face, saw her fight it down, stuff it back. More effort. "Flareup," she said, and she was trying so hard not to make it sound like an order, "Tell us what's going on."

"I…just want to be left alone," she said.

"You're never alone," Chromia said. "None of us are." She meant, of course, their split spark. Like they weren't, any of the three of them, real people. Just…a third of an identity. Did she believe that any more? Did she want to? It had been comforting for so long, but now…it felt so limiting. Like she wasn't real. At best some sort of mediation between her sisters, some mid-option. At worst, a desperate cloud of uncertainty, trying to be real and failing. Trying to be a warrior like Chromia. And failing. Trying to be intense and intellectual like Arcee, and…finding herself spun up in horrible knots, like a chain wrapped around her axle.

"I want to be," she said, pitifully. I want to keep all of the confusion and frustration and doubt to myself. Like a quarantine. She shifted into her bot mode, standing optic-to-optic with her sisters. How can I explain that? "Who are we?" she asked, her voice strained. "What do we even stand for?"

"We stand for freedom," Arcee said, confidently. The voice of someone who never doubted. Flareup felt a surge of envy. To be that sure…. It seemed golden and noble and at the same time hopelessly naïve. Did Arcee honestly not see the death, the strain, the pain all around them? Did she not notice how little freedom any of them actually had? They didn't have the freedom to put the war down, even if they wanted to.

"Fight for what you love," Chromia said, enigmatically. Aware that there was something deeper in her sister that Flareup couldn't articulate.

"I love the truth," Flareup said, surprised at her own hostility. Why? Because she couldn't control it. Couldn't control anything. Everything, including herself, seemed to be tearing apart, spinning out of control, flying off the rails. "I love goodness, but I don't see any here. I don't see it anymore." She saw the looks on her sisters' faces: Arcee's a tight mask, Chromia's far too open, trying to reach out, understand. Once again, Flareup was the floating bubble in the middle. Between the poles. Unstable.

"It's a phase," Arcee said, reasonably. Too reasonably. Patronizing. "It happens. We all have moments of doubt. You ride it out. Be stronger than it. Get through it. Like we've always done." Her hands clenched. "Fight it."

"I hate fighting!" The admission torn from her like a pained confession.

Chromia rolled forward, her blue hand extended. Reaching for contact. Or trying to push her away. Flareup couldn't even tell anymore. "Barricade really—"

"This isn't about Barricade!" It wasn't. It wasn't about the torture. That was physical. That was…done and gone. Why was she having this problem? Everyone else had gone through this—paid their price in pain and horror for the Autobot cause. Why had it spawned such doubt in her? Why had it filled her with questions that seemed to have no answers? The problem had to be…her. Arcee and Chromia had got something in the split that she didn't. That she was missing. She was…incomplete.

A stunned silence, all three of them quelled by the shrill vehemence of her voice.

"I-I…" Flareup dropped her head, her optics falling on her armor—purple arabesques of glittering paint danced in the sunlight. Paint that the repairbots had done. She'd thought they were beautiful at the time. Now they just…set her apart. She lifted her optics to her sisters, aware, suddenly, that one of them was still Decepticon red, that both of them peered from behind the protective cages their enemies used. "Help me," she said, her voice breaking. "I can't…do this anymore."

[***]

"What are you playing at, Roe?" Yee dropped onto the sunfaded picnic bench next to Sternburgh, placing a soda on the battered wood.

"Can't you tell?" He gave a one-sided grin, reaching to pop the lid. Been so long since he'd seen a damn Coca-Cola, he was about to cry. Stupidest things remind you of home. Stupidest things remind you what matters.

"No, I can't. Which is what's weirding me out." Yee shook her face into the breeze to blow her fine blonde tendrils off her face. "Beautiful place, huh?"

Sternburgh grinned. "Like I won't notice the deflector." He took a drink. Yee came through again. Real American soda, ice-fucking-cold. Exactly what the doctor ordered.

Well, the doctor had ordered a shitload of oxycodone, but Sternburgh didn't play that game. Not now when he needed his brain on maximum. He could feel her eyes on him. "Honestly? Don't know. Most of what you saw there was reflex."

"And they do react so very, very much like humans," Yee said. "But it seems to me…we have to make a choice."

"No choice at all. America. Always."

"Don't play games with yourself," Yee snapped. "Much less with me. Which America?"

He put the soda down. A long moment, where they both watched a droplet of condensation sweat its way down the side, like a cold tear. "The one that's worth what we've sacrificed for it," he said, quietly.

"And them? Are we using the Autobots?" She reached over, taking a long swallow from his soda. "I just want to know the game plan."

Sternburgh snorted. "Right. You just want to be my conscience again."

She gave a shrug, her shoulders thin and birdlike through the oversized t-shirt which was all they'd had left for the refugees. "Maybe that, too."

Sternburgh scrubbed a hand through his hair. "I think they need to make their choice first."


	30. Recriminations

30. Recrimination

_Nemesis_

Fate, or at least Megatron, was not finished handing out suck to Vortex. The copter sighed, philosophically. This is how it worked. There was no sense complaining. No sense fighting. You took your lumps for what you believe in. This is what you get, is it worth it?

Yes. It was. It had been worth it if even for the delusion of teamwork. Even the pale, unfulfilling echo that it was, that could never be like the gestalt bond...it was worth it. To feel good and right and just about a mission. To execute commands cleanly. He'd missed out on the last few actions: Tunguska, Bourzey, but this one...it brought it all back. A small team, not a large assault. A focused mission. Clear goals. Yes. Everything he was good at. Everything he was made for. Suddenly, all those orbitals of being the bit player, the background muscle, seemed stripped away, irrelevant. Not enough.

He'd always known they were not enough. He'd just thought...nothing else would ever be. That it wasn't worth trying. That all he had left was to do his part, and try to survive. And try not to ask why he even wanted to survive after he had lost it all. As if winning the war would erase his loss, and the fact that it was all his fault.

And now they were being punished, as a team. All of them. And his nightmare/memory had reminded him that what he had lost was gone forever; he was never getting it back. That the best he could hope for were moments like the raid on the aircraft carrier. That was all that was left to him.

And this: hauling refuse to the recycling Not...glamorous. Then again, neither had been many things he'd done. More grunt work that dronelings could handle more efficiently, more quickly. A symbol, just written very large, of what he had been doing since...then.

Vortex paused, before lifting up another bin. Was it part of the punishment—the knowledge that barely-sentient dronelings normally did your job, and faster? Or was it that...suddenly there seemed to be a lot fewer dronelings around?

There were more bins than usual cluttering the hallway. What was in them? He popped the lid. Twitched back, his rotors slapping against his backframe. Dead End's greyed body sprawled in the bin, optics wide and staring and offline. His entire chassis cavity had been ripped apart, almost as if blown out from the inside. Vortex froze.

They're going to blame me, he thought. They're going to read the file. They're going to think...Swindle. And even if I get cleared of charges, even if...all that mud will be dragged up again. All that history laid bare and raw. All those old injuries torn open, inspected publicly, eyes and questions on matters that Vortex knew were too personal, too close. Even now. He was not at peace with his own history: he was not ready for the judgments of others.

Still. Someone, on the ship, had done this to Dead End. And...if he did nothing it could be traced back to him—he was here, the body was here...it would be a perfect opportunity. The fact that Vortex had no motive? Would not matter much. He was crazy. Unstable. Something had happened, a breakdown. He could even see Blackout dragged in, every word he'd said back in the warehangar brought up, dissected, shown in the blackest, most ominous light.

He knew it was ridiculous. And he knew it was entirely plausible. This was how bureaucracy worked. Especially against one who had no allies.

He had to tell someone. Maybe he had allies. Maybe his 'team' could contain this.

He looked down at Dead End's face. The mouth had locked open in a rictus of pain, like a never-ending scream. We...wanted the same thing, he thought. All we wanted was to belong.

Now he had to risk that tenuous belonging. He tapped his comm. "Starscream?"

[***]

_Earth_

Barricade waited in the clearing, impatiently, hunched into his alt mode. Anyone out at this hour took one look at the lightbar and the markings and went swiftly in the other direction. Fine with him. Saved him a lot of trouble. Though, he could have used the distraction. The Trevelyan human had been...unsettlingly open. Sternburgh he could deal with. Yee, also. The Max-human? There was too much of Frenzy in him for Barricade ever to be...comfortable around him, but none of them had just...forgotten he was a threat. There were moments in that garage where he would have sworn she would have been shocked if he'd attacked her. None of the others had ever, entirely, lost that awareness, even if the wariness had faded.

It was bizarre and he was well away from that. And he'd had his chance and…not taken it. He'd had her there, back turned, entirely trusting. He'd flexed his talons, already feeling the wet heat of human fluids, the snapping of fragile twigs of ivory they called their endoskeleton, hearing the whining of air from a punctured lung. So easy. So fragile.

And…he couldn't do it. Too close to death himself, he berated himself. Too close to that brink, too soon returned. They were right, he wasn't ready. And though she was human, one of them who had tortured him, he…couldn't. She was no threat. He was vicious, a killer, but he was a warrior, not a slaughterer of weak animals. He'd snarled so loudly that the walls of her flimsy garage had shaken. She'd turned, red hair flying, her grey eyes innocent and confused. Innocent, dumb animals, he thought. He threw himself out the door, tires showering gravel as he peeled out, to get away from there, the scene of his latest shame.

Didn't matter, he told himself. Didn't matter what she did. If she called the authorities? So what? At worst, sowing confusion. At best, she'd end up in a nice long conversation in a windowless room. Either way, no threat. No threat.

Only threat around here is you going soft, Barricade.

Which meant that his paranoia was not up to his usual standards. Which meant he was making mistakes. Frag. Well, this is why you send the data. This is why you sat out here and gave the signal—three bursts and a squelch—that Soundwave might hear, but would have no way of decoding. That is why you're waiting.

He heard the distinctive chopping sound of rotors through the air, just marginally louder than the breeze that had been riffling across the treetops all night. He waited until the worst of the down draft had passed, before rolling to approach.

"Something to report?" Blackout's voice teetered on the edge of businesslike and curious.

"Yeah. Want you and Starscream to look over it yourselves, though, first." He felt Blackout's attention like a weight across his hood. Yeah, he thought, sourly. Feel my incompetence. My self-doubt. This was not a time to let his ego stand in the way. Barricade pushed back, standing up. "Need to do a cortical upload."

Blackout hesitated before changing modes himself. Barricade blinked: what was the copter worried about? Why hesitate? Was he that bad? Barricade tugged the cable from its housing behind his audio and held it out to Blackout, grunting, not wanting to acknowledge that the copter was twice his height.

Blackout took the cable reluctantly, ducking his head to push the jack home in his input. "Ready." He didn't seem ready. He seemed like he was bracing for something awful to happen.

Barricade began the transfer. Images of the leylines, the map, the glyphs, everything, raced from his cortex to Blackout's cache. He felt Blackout receive the data, start to review it. He felt overspill, some of Blackout's residual memories, the code displaced from the onrush of data, things in the top of Blackout's memory cache washing back into his. Fragments of an alien memory.

He saw...himself. Dead. He saw the harshbright sun beating down upon the grey metal deck, the aircraft huddled together, parked far away. He saw himself, hands bound, rheo'd so high he could barely stand. He saw his armor shed off, heard a thin high screech from his vocalizer. Saw himself fall.

Barricade locked. The databurst cut off abruptly, and Blackout was left staring, at the stiff, numb, shutdown frame of the interceptor—Barricade's four optics dimmed and unmoving. Unnervingly still.

As if he had died all over again.


	31. Consolations and Challenges

31. Consolations and Challenges.

Max sat down next to Yee, who was watching the sunrise from the second-floor hospital windows. It was early morning, the light greying the eastern horizon. And he was back…here. Where he never thought he'd be, kicked out in ignominy, banished. And then he'd…compounded his sin, rushing to repair Barricade, keep him stabilized. It was the same thing he'd done to Starscream, really: more concerned with learning and preserving than consequences.

He stared at his hands. Clean, for once. It had been…months since his hands had been this clean, so used to being elbow deep in grease or machinery, black stains etched into microcuts in his skin. Not now. Clean, almost pink. Right.

"C-can I talk to you, ma'am?"

Yee turned, the light limning her hair like a halo. "Not ma'am," she corrected.

"Uhh, yeah. Sorry." Max scrubbed his scalp with a nervous hand, feeling her green eyes on him. "How, uhhh, how's Sternburgh?"

She smiled, something geniune and honest in the expression. "He's just fine. A survivor." She looked back out the window. "Pretty place. You've spent time here before, yes?"

"Yeah." Don't remind me, he thought, his stomach churning.

"So, what's really on your mind?"

"I…me. Really, me."

Yee nodded, understandingly, patiently. "Max. We keep telling you. You kept an enemy alive, yes. But look how many you saved."

"But…it doesn't change that whole 'aid and comfort to the enemy' thing." He'd heard the phrase on the news. Or somewhere. It didn't matter. It was bad, and he'd done it.

Yee's smile turned a little sad, as though she were watching an old, depressing movie she already knew the ending to. "It's war. What matters most is results." She gestured around the base. "You've got plenty of those. Kids who'll have daddies see them graduate middle school. That sort of thing."

"I guess I'm just not sure a lot of people will see it that way."

She laughed, her eyes glittering with amusement. "Max? Trust me. Roe and I will handle the official story. You'll be a hero by the time we get done with you."

"I…uhhh." Max wasn't a hero. He was an idiot who let his love of mechanics ride roughshod over common sense. "I'm not a hero."

"Yes, you are," Yee said, her voice firm. "And you're the walking symbol of the best part of America. Own it, will ya?" She slapped his arm, one of those friendly smacks that athletes gave each other. The first time Max got a manly arm-swat, and it was for this. And from a woman. Who, to be honest, scared the crap out of him. "Consider it gratitude, okay? Trust me. It's the least we can do."

"Lie your ass off for me?"

"Even if we had to lie? Yeah. It's a moral thing, you know? Totally different kind of math than you're used to."

Yeah. He got that feeling. A lot.

"If your conscience is bothering you," she said, and her voice was soft, sympathetic, but somehow tight, as though she were admitting to a weakness of her own, "you can help repair the Autobots?"

Max shook his head. "Yeah, they don't…want me. I remember that well enough from last time."

"Give them a second chance, maybe. And while you're at it," she said, turning back to the window, "give yourself one, too, huh?"

[***]

Megatron looked up as Flatline burst into his chamber. This was...unexpected. Out of Flatline's usual behavior, or so Megatron had been led to believe from Thundercracker's files. But perhaps Thundercracker, like Starscream, was also...prone to misinformation. Or sloppiness. Neither boded well for Skywarp's eventual report.

"You have progress to report?" he said, coolly, laying aside the datapad he had been scrolling through. Flatline's insubordination would have to be handled. But first...data. He would hardly be the first who needed to be brought to heel.

"Yes." No honorific. "I have returned."

"I can see-," Megatron cut himself short as Flatline strode closer. The optics seemed coruscating, and as Flatline approached, a strange light seemed to lick out from the sides of his face, along his teeth. Unsettling. Then again, Megatron had larger concerns than the aesthetics of his mechs. Megatron felt, for the first time, uneasy.

"Megatron," the voice said, and it was darker and more resonant than Flatline's timbre. "I find myself…unwilling to further your plan."

"I find it intriguing that you feel you have any say," Megatron said, calmly. If Thundercracker had tolerated this sort of insubordination, it did not bode well for his leadership capabilities. Another taint in that Trine.

"You need me. I refuse to participate." Simple facts. Megatron bridled.

"I do not need you," Megatron retorted. "Everyone is expendable." Hook could be found to work on this. Or, others. Progress would slow, but it was looking increasingly more likely that Flatline would have to be pulled off this project. Perhaps permanently.

Flatline's toothy grin spread, malevolently. "Indeed. You do realize that you are included in that. You are expendable."

Megatron bolted up in his chair. "You go too far, Flatline." Something was wrong. Understatement.

The head tilted, amused. "Perhaps. How long has it been since someone told you what needed to be said? Those who rule by fear and power must always fret for the more fearsome, more powerful." A quiet arrogance, as though he were that something more fearsome.

The sense that had been building since Flatline's entrance began to solidify—that was not Flatline's speech pattern. This was…someone else. Lights flickered across the room, flashing whiteblue and stark over Flatline's armor, his optics radiating a virulent red. "I have no such concern," Megatron retorted, but it sounded thin, even to his own audio. "I have died for this cause. And been brought back. I am…vital." In every sense.

A dismissive gesture, the two smaller hands shifting, restlessly. "Is that all it takes? I have come back before. And shall…again." The optics blazed in challenge.

A sick sensation was gnawing under Megatron's spark chamber. Was it fear? If Megatron had ever known fear, he might call it that. It felt…sharp and greenish yellow and rabid, rotating against his systems. It was unpleasant."I will not tolerate such effrontery."

"It is your choice to tolerate," the voice grew almost darker with amusement, "or not." One hand came up, idly, almost lazily, and Megatron found himself crushed back against the chair. Flatline—or Flatline's frame—stepped up onto the dais, hand still outstretched. The flames seemed to lick further along his jaw. "Choose."

[***]

Optimus rolled through the abandoned housing units. Weeks ago, they had been vibrant and full of life and noise and light. The sparse remnants of that time merely underscored the loss, changing what had merely been decay into devastation: here a half-deflated plastic ball lumped in the middle of a rising tide of weeds, there a pair of sneakers thrown over the power lines dangled despairingly in the constant stir of air from the ocean. This place was so beautiful, could be so beautiful again. Or, it could continue to slide into ruin.

Optimus couldn't help but feel that the choice was in his hands. Sometimes, like now, the weight was heavy. No. It was always heavy, the burden of destiny—that his words were responsible for lives and deaths and such radical futures. Had he made the right decision, all those aeons ago, to launch the Allspark into space? He knew the answer was yes—well, at the time. He was not, back then, a military leader. Still hated that title. Still felt like a rank amateur about tactics and strategy. Still felt every death, every injury, as though it was done to his own frame.

It was just that now, the choice…wasn't so clear. Oh, the goal was the same—protect life, preserve the future from Decepticon tyranny. A world under Megatron's rule was a world ruled by madness and violence. And in a way, he had been in Megatron's world for…all this time. The goal was the same, but Optimus had no notion, no idea now, which path led to that goal. It could not have been coincidence that landed the Allspark here. It could not be mere coincidence that they ran into a sentient species on the brink of cybertechnology. Perhaps, ages and ages ago, before the war, perhaps they too had been like the humans—delicate and frail and short lived, and all of what they knew now, had known, had built and developed and researched over millenia, had been to armor themselves up, to toughen their skins, prolong their lives. Perhaps under it all, they were the same. It was this that kept Optimus close to the humans—this notion that perhaps at some point in Cybertronian pre-history, they had not been so different. They had not evolved to be war machines, after all. That had been an adaptation of the war. What else had they adapted to, or adapted to solve, over the long stretch of time? What else might grow from this? Could the Autobots learn a new way of living from Earth, and put down the war? Finally?

The humans had to be the key. Nothing happened for no reason. Optimus had read of a great human physicist who had insisted that 'God does not play dice with the universe.' Yes. There was a reason the Allspark, the Tomb of the Primes, had ended up on Earth. There had to be.

The evening air was thick with humidity, damping the sounds of birds settling in. What to do? What was right? He knew there were…problems with the humans. But they would come around. He had faith in that. He had to. He had seen good men like Lennox and Epps and Graham. He had to believe that they would overcome.

Yet at the same time, he had seen…less honorable men like Galloway. In the positions of power. What power would they hold? And…this disquieted Optimus…was he the same? Was he as headstrong and input blind as Galloway? He understood the man: he wanted to protect his country, just as Optimus wanted to protect life. But were there more similarities? Was he as far astray as Galloway in achieving those goals?

He rolled to a stop, his engine pinging in the cooling evening air. Moving forward without purpose. Inertia, he thought. That's what I've been doing. Just letting events carry me along. That is not what a leader does. I have been managing. I have been coping. I have been counseling. I have not, however, been leading.

What is the right answer? Cybertron is dead, and ages away. Earth was here and brimming with life. Earth was their future. A united Earth. That was what he would work for. One that gave pride to his own kind. Cooperating as equals. Free from the human governments. Aiding, of course, but not beholden. He tapped his comm. "Prowl," he said, "We need, I need, recommendations for terrestrial stations and solutions."

"Yes," Prowl answered, crisply. Optimus wheeled himself in a turn. Yes. Prowl would have them prepared. For any contingency. "I shall have them ready when you return, Optimus Prime." The title, rarely given, but a blunt signal of Prowl's approbation. Yes, it was time to lead. Time to be a Prime.


	32. Repair

A/N: So I sort of tried to challenge myself to tie together ALL of Baycanon into some semi-coherent mass. I don't know; I must be a masochist or something. Space bridges and the reference here to Starscream knowing Cybertron still lives refer to Reign of Starscream and comic canon.

32. Repair

Nemesis

"He just collapsed." Starscream's voice was harsh, hiding an accusation. As if there were more. As if he expected Blackout to be hiding something from him. Well, the copter thought, with their history, perhaps not an entirely undeserved suspicion.

"We were doing the cortical link," Blackout said. "I guess he got some blowback or something."

"You…guess." The red optics flicked to him, sharply.

"I was more concerned I was datacapturing with full accuracy," Blackout said, stiffly. "He insisted he wanted us to see the images before we agreed with his assessment."

Starscream turned back to the limp form of the smaller interceptor, sprawled on the repair cradle. "That is…unusual." A quiet acknowledgment: he'd have been distracted, too.

"Yes," Blackout said. Barricade had been known to tear into blind rages when his data assessments were questioned. The silence spoke between them the accusation neither of them dared to voice—was this one of the changes from Barricade's return? How deep did it go? What else had changed?

"The data?" Starscream asked, quietly, as if it were somehow wrong or inappropriate to ask now. Ridiculous. Both of them had had how many arguments, debates, debriefs over the bodies of dead mechs. Barricade wasn't dead, merely, apparently, rebooting. Blackout knew why—knew the images that had blownback across the channel. He supposed that graphic video of his own death would be…more than enough to send him into a kind of stupor, even now, orbital cycles past. He was honestly glad it was only that that had glitched Barricade. But he didn't want to let Starscream know how clumsy he had been, how inept and unable to suppress the data.

"Space bridge," Blackout said. "Barricade's assessment and I concur. There's an ancient space bridge on Earth, disassembled, in pieces, all over the globe."

"Why not destroy it? Why disassemble?" Starscream mused. His head turned back to Blackout.

"They imagined they wanted to get back?"

"Why not keep it intact, then?"

Blackout tilted his head. Stumped. Frag. Why would they? Why not destroy it? Why the puzzle that only a Cybertronian could decode?

"Too dangerous," the voice croaked up from the repair cradle. Barricade's optics were dimmed, half-power. "Whatever was going on when they made that decision made it too dangerous to keep."

"Keep them from leaving, or others from getting there?"

Barricade shrugged, weakly, his shoulder tire catching in the repair cradle. "Don't know."

"Where does it go?"

"Cybertron," Starscream said, then ducked his head, as if afraid he had spoken aloud. "It goes back to Cybertron." He occupied himself, as if trying to erase his words, unhooking Barricade's pauldron from the repair cradle's mesh.

Blackout felt his entire body shiver. "Home."

"Home is dead," Barricade said. "What's the point?"

"We have anything better here? If we must build a new life, why not where we are from?" Blackout jutted his wedged mouth.

"Symbolism," Barricade spat, struggling to sit up.

"Symbolism is powerful," Starscream said, quietly.

"Is there anything more for us there?" Blackout argued.

"Is there anything less?" Starscream shrugged. "No Autobots. No war."

"What are we without war?" Barricade said, quietly.

"There may still be a war to fight," Starscream said. "Just one in which we have picked the battlefield."

"You sound like you're going to assemble it," Blackout said.

"It would give us a tactical advantage over the Autobots," Starscream said. "Though it would require a number of high-visibility raids on human settlements."

"Not really." Barricade glared at his shoulder armor as it snagged again in the repair cradle's mesh. "Most of the sites are unoccupied. Some are preserved as historical or archaeological sites."

"High vis to the Autobots, though," Blackout said. "They'll see us coming. Wonder why."

"The odds that they can figure it out?"

Barricade shrugged, wearily. "Unless they get the Trevelyan human? Unlikely."

"So we have a time constraint," Starscream said. "We shall assemble retrieval teams." He turned to Blackout. "We shall need you to lead one."

"We." Blackout's crest lowered. "You mean you."

Starscream ran an impatient hand over his face. "There is…," he faltered. His mouth moved, as if chewing over what to say. "Yes," he said, finally. "I have no intention of informing Megatron of this until it is complete."

"If then," Blackout said, his voice harsh.

"Yes," Starscream snapped. "If then. Do you trust him with this? After all that we have seen?"

"He is our leader. You're suggesting treason."

"Treason? Is it? Or merely wise caution to an individual who has proven himself unworthy of our loyalty." Starscream's voice was sharp and thin, like a blade. "My loyalty is to the Decepticon cause. A Cybertron ruled by merit instead of privilege. I honor the ideal above one individual." His optics blazed with open challenge, his broad shoulders squaring to the copter. "Tell him, if you must. Bring me down, if that is what you desire. I must follow my honor: you must follow yours. Just know," and his voice crackled, "just know the price of your honor for the future of our kind."

Blackout stared at him, face an unreadable mask, before he turned and stormed from the repair bay, wordlessly.

"Think he'll tell him?" Barricade asked.

"I cannot allow myself to be swamped in speculation," Starscream said, tightly, tearing his optics away from the door. "But Megatron keeps his secrets from us. And I shall keep a secret from him."

"Secret." A prompt, a hint. Not daring to ask.

"Dead End has been offlined. Brutally. And Flatline is doing something that requires…enormous amounts of energy." Starscream's hands shifted, restlessly, unballing from tight fists with conscious effort.

"You think they're connected?" Barricade pushed himself to the edge of the repair cradle, legs dangling above the floor. Tired of being the patient. Tired of doing nothing. Hating that he had collapsed, though the memories still swirled in his cortex. Dead, yes. This is what death looks like. Different when it's you, isn't it? Except it isn't. Weak.

"The basic connection is that the only way these would have gone unnoticed is if Megatron himself has authorized them, explicitly or implicitly."

Barricade hesitated. "Yes."

Starscream nodded, his wing flaps releasing some tension, more relieved than he wanted to consider that someone else had drawn the same conclusion. Barricade had asked for his evidence to be reviewed, his conclusions to be validated. Starscream had needed the same, but had lacked Barricade's foresight to even make the request.

Barricade swore, suddenly. "Soundwave!" Frag. Soundwave had the whole ship bugged. No need for Blackout to run to tell Megatron anything—unless he thought he could outpace Soundwave's comm.

Starscream tilted his head, turning to tap a black domed node attached to his rib strut. Comm jamming nodes. "Have some faith in me, Barricade?" he said, but his voice had lost the sharp edge.

Barricade sagged. "Yeah," he muttered. "Should know by now." Another slip. Another failure.

"You should," the jet said, pointedly. "But we have other concerns right now. Retrieval and assembly." He paused. Offering the job to Barricade. A gesture of trust.

"And you?"

"I shall be recruiting more for our mission."

"Opening yourself up to more treason. Any one of them could turn on you. Turn on us."

Starscream frowned. "Yes, but I have spent too long worrying about my own plating. This bridge changes everything. We can go from merely trying to survive to…something greater."

"There's no Allspark. This changes nothing. Blackout's right: Cybertron is dead." The words came black and bitter from Barricade's mouth. And end to the war—what would they do? Was it worth it to go back to a dead planet? Could they revive a husk when they themselves had become so hollow in pursuit of victory?

"Cybertron lives, if barely," Starscream said. "I have seen it. And it needs us." He seemed on the brink of saying something more, the actuators in his vocalizer humming with words he didn't speak.

"Yeah," Barricade said, dropping to his feet, tilting his face up to stare into the taller jet's. He refused to analyze his motives, refused to calculate the regret. He was being asked, he was being trusted. He could not turn away. "I'm in."


	33. Erasure

33. Erasure

Ratchet frowned. It was an unusual request. "Are you…certain this is what you want?" Flareup sat on the repair frame, her leg tire swinging idly off the ground. Beside her, flanking her, her sisters stood, Arcee looking firm and resolute, Chromia tremulously hopeful.

"Yes," Flareup said. A hesitation, and then she jerked her delicately pointed chin in a nod. "It is the best solution."

"And the memories?" What she was asking—a complete wipe and reinstall—was not an everyday operation. Ratchet had performed it only a handful of times over the ages, and normally in cases of enemy viral assault. Cyberbiological warfare. This was different. He'd never had someone voluntarily ask.

"Gone. All of them," Flareup said, firmly. "Everything from Bourzey onwards." Everything, Ratchet thought, that separated her from her sisters.

"Others will remember," he reminded her, thinking of Ironhide. "And you'll have a gap in your chrono-log."

"It will be easier to live with than…this," she said, pointing at her red optic. This and the other ways she'd become separated from her sisters. Physical separation was one thing—psychological was worse. She'd been clinging to values and ideals, and neglecting the real sparks that ached for her. Selfish. No more.

"We'll be there for her," Arcee said, firmly. "We've already discussed this."

Ratchet nodded, still feeling a vague unease. Was Flareup even able to make this decision? Was she competent, or had her experiences rendered her unstable? How much of this was her decision and how much was pressure from her sisters? Could one of a triplet even make a solitary decision?

"And," Chromia said, "we can ask the others who remember—especially Ironhide—to, you know, not mention it."

"A clean slate," Flareup said, hopefully. "Maybe they'll forgive me." If they see how much I've done to earn it. If they let me take this suffering. I shall repay them for my wrongdoing. And they shall know, and I'll be…free of this.

"It's not a matter of forgiveness," Ratchet said, unsteadily. This was not his terrain. He was a repairer of bodies, not minds. "No one blames you for anything," he ventured.

"I blame me," Flareup said. "That's enough."

Ratchet had no answer. "Yes," he said.

Flareup quivered, as though his assent made it suddenly real. "Please?" she said, in a tiny voice, more afraid of her own fear than anything else, "May my sisters stay with me?" Chromia twitched at the words, blinking her optic shutters quickly as if to dispel emotion. Arcee's mouth tightened for a klik.

"Whatever you wish," Ratchet said, feeling somehow helpless in the face of this.

"I know I'll be unconscious and I won't…remember even that, but…please?"

Chromia twined her hand in her sister's, blue against purple, her arm tire bumping gently against the armor. "Yes," Chromia said. "We'll be there the whole time. We won't leave you. And we'll be here the instant you wake up."

Wake up. Flareup clung to the phrase. Wake up, as though this were all a bad dream, a nightmare of conscience. Wake up, and be clean.

[***]

It all came back to Dead End. Which sounded prophetic, in a way, Skywarp thought, unhappily. He had disappeared. On a closed ship. Every drop to the surface had been logged. And while he knew those logs could be…well, a little incomplete (he'd done it himself from time to time) the mechs who had surface dropped seemed to have no history of any sort of personal animus against the grounder.

Skywarp used his security code, opening the personnel files. Dead End's was…unremarkable. At least as long as he'd served on the Nemesis. There were a handful of disciplinaries, but who didn't have a collection of those racked up over the millenia? A squabble or two was to be expected. He hadn't worked well in large scale operations, but, well, they were probably all out of practice with those. Dwindling resources on both sides almost forced battles to be team on team.

The only even somewhat remarkable thing about the entire file is that Dead End seemed to have no known intimate associates. The word 'friend' would have been a bridge too far for most Decepticons, but serving on a ship this long, most developed some sort of semi-amicable relationships, if for no other reason than to help pass the long time of interstellar transit. Still, that was hardly sinister—Skywarp's own record looked less palatable than this—and gave him no answers at all about who might have wanted to do him in. Because that was becoming the only logical answer. Mechs did not disappear for solar cycles at a time without foul play at the heart of it.

Maybe Starscream would have an answer. A lead. Something. Lots of times things just didn't make it into files: handled administratively, or bartered or bribed down. One of the complications of his job had always been to find who was the living resource of the ship. Starscream was at least the place to start. And…his Trine mate had reached out to him about the lab. About the dronelings. Why, then, did Skywarp feel that something was being held back from him?

He clicked off the monitor, calling up a locator blip. Starscream wasn't that far away. Just down the hall in one of the Ready Rooms. Huh. That was an odd choice. Skywarp wondered what he was doing there. Well, one way to find out.

[***]

Starscream jerked as the door to the Ready Room whooshed open. He blanked the screen instantly. Vortex, Blackout, and a few others swiveled to face the dark-armored jet as he entered the Ready Room. Starscream nodded at the assembled mechs, who got up, hastily. Dismissed.

"Skywarp," Starscream said, a little tightly.

"Starscream." Skywarp's gaze revolved to take in the entire room, logging each mech. Just in case. A few pushed by him boldly. Blackout's optics stared into his own, in open challenge. They waited, both almost vibrating with tension, as the others filed from the room, as if tacitly knowing that this was, somehow, between them. When the door finally closed them into a sudden silence, Starscream faced him, his hands curled, as if cupping secrets. Starscream's entire body language seemed to radiate suspicion. He was keeping things from Skywarp. But what? And why?

"Let's start with the obvious," Skywarp said. "This was about…?"

Starscream sighed. "This IS about you not trusting me."

Skywarp made a gesture taking in the now-empty room."Not trusting you," he echoed. As if that said everything he needed to say.

Starscream had the decency to duck his head. And for a long moment the Trine mates stared at each other, aware of the distance between them.

"Starscream," Skywarp began, gently. "I thought you had been open with me." Skywarp began calling up the information that Starscream had given him before—about the dronelings disappearing. About the energy fluctuations from Flatline's lab, all of which pointed to Megatron's authority. How much of that was true? Skywarp cringed inwardly that he had taken Starscream's word for it. He had trusted, and now this. He felt the dull burn of something like betrayal. I thought you trusted me, he echoed. Because I trusted you.

"This is a different matter entirely," Starscream said. "It does not concern you."

"Does Megatron know?"

The question hung in the air, vibrating between them, like a spinning coin neither of them wanted to land. But Skywarp had to ask it.

"Skywarp…," Starscream began, then backed off, shrinking back.

This was it, then. This was betrayal. All this time, and Starscream had been preparing to cross the line. Skywarp felt a raw fury sweep over him. He lunged forward. "I defended you!" he howled, driving Starscream back against the briefing's display board. The plasglass spiderwebbed at the impact. "I believed you! I…TRUSTED you!" He sank his black talons under the bronze armor, deliberate, hurting.

"I am trying to keep you out of this!" Starscream cried out. His own talons raked over Skywarp's armor, trying to force Skywarp away. "I am trying to keep you safe!"

"By betraying me? By misleading me?" Skywarp shoved against Starscream. Starscream shoved back. Skywarp stumbled, grabbing for Starscream's arm as he fell—the two tumbled to the floor in a crash. They rolled together, entangled, each seeking to push the other into the floor. They came to rest against the near wall, Starscream's hand firmly across Skywarp's face.

"Can you not see that I am trying to protect you?" Starscream hissed.

Skywarp tossed his head, dislodging Starscream's hand. "Protect me from what? Betrayal by my own Trine mate?"

Starscream quivered, the words cutting deep. He pushed himself off of Skywarp, rising slowly to his feet. "I do not wish to drag you down with me," he said, the words aching and raw.

Skywarp pushed up on one hand to a sitting position. "Drag me down where?" Starscream shook his head. "Look. I already know something. I already know you're hiding something. I have to investigate. I have to!" No mistaking the pleading in his voice. He did not want to have to investigate, formally, Starscream.

Starscream wavered. His stabilizing gyros fired, as he reached for Skywarp, then withdrew. His face tightened. "Do," he said, coldly, but the coldness covered pain, "what you must, Skywarp. And I must do what I must."

Skywarp rolled to his feet. "You're being an idiot!"

Starscream stiffened. "If that is your professional assessment."

Skywarp growled in frustration. Why couldn't Starscream see he had nothing to gain by shutting Skywarp out? Why couldn't he see that left out, there was nothing Skywarp could do to help?

He…doesn't trust me. He thinks I'll turn him over to Megatron.

Will I? Would I? Am I that strong in my virtue? Will my virtue comfort me in the aftermath?

"Starscream," he said, almost openly begging. Whatever he was about to say got cut off by a flare of red light over the Ready Room, and a voice cutting in room comm.

"Barricade, on." There was no disguising the tension in his voice. "Starscream. There's…a problem."


	34. Command Decision

34. Command Decision

Reports blared in across the NEST screens. Prowl, Optimus, Ironhide and Arcee frowned at the running displays. On a top bank, worldwide news media were blasting panic across the airwaves, a lower bank showed the more secure responses and feeds from the military units who has aligned with NEST. They had not yet been uninstalled: an oversight, probably.

And in the corner, the line to the US military command crackled fuzzily to life.

"Never thought I'd miss Keller," Ironhide muttered as Director Galloway's smug face resolved from the static of the screen.

"Nostalgia at this point is unproductive," Prowl murmured back. "We must negotiate."

Optimus stepped forward. "You are aware of the attack."

Galloway managed to look offended and amused at the same time. "It is my job, after all."

"Then where's our slaggin' authorization!" Ironhide snapped.

Galloway gave a tolerant sigh. "We must follow international channels," he explained, as if talking to a dull child. Deliberately patronizing.

"Slag international channels—humans might be dying!" Ironhide could not figure out how Galloway couldn't care. They lived under a different flag, a different bit of colored cloth. That was all. Nothing separated any group of humans that he knew of as deeply, sharply or definitely as the rift between Autobots and Decepticons. At this point, they might have evolved to two different species.

"Ironhide, stand down," Optimus said. This was not, as Prowl had said, productive either. "Assistant Secretary Galloway, we offer our assistance to combat the Decepticon attack." Offer. Not beg. We will, he thought, make our own way if we must.

Galloway smirked. "I'll make a note of that." His eyes flicked to Ironhide, goading him for a response. Ironhide's fists balled, trembling with rage. But he stood still, respecting Optimus's orders. Galloway gave up after a few seconds, turning back to Optimus. "The attack is in Switzerland. There are diplomatic issues with crossing boundaries into such a devotedly neutral nation."

Arcee had been ignoring Galloway in favor of the news screen. She'd been summoned here at the first word of the attack, from the berthside of Flareup. She'd hated the separation, hated she might be breaking her vow to be with Flare when she rebooted, but Chromia had told her that it was fine. That duty called. She hated being called here only to have that duty…refused. It made it a waste. "What is this thing that they are attacking?"

Galloway tipped back, smugly. "First, it's not a 'they': it's one NBE. Second, that's classified information."

Optimus frowned. "There was a time that we had access to classified information."

"Or so you thought."

Prowl's door wings twitched—the only sign that even he was getting nettled by Galloway's attitude. "It's the Large Hadron Collider," he said, coolly. So much for classified. Optimus admitted he enjoyed the flash of irritation on Galloway's face.

Arcee squinted at one screen. "Who is that? Some gestalt we've never seen before?"

Ironhide cast one last glare at Galloway before turning his attention to the screens Arcee was monitoring, frowning. "Never seen that one." He felt the weight of optics on him—even after all these ages, after all the recent stress, they still trusted him enough to remember. "Can't get an energy signature from these primitive screens," he muttered, pointedly, loud enough for Galloway to overhear.

The large mech—it was large enough to be a gestalt—was assaulting the main entry to the complex. But, Ironhide noted, with a certain kind of care. Something in there it wanted intact. "What could he want?" he mused.

"The Large Hadron Collider produces subatomic particles, some known collectively as Higgs-boson particles," Prowl said. He flicked his optics to Galloway, then stopped. He would say no more. If Galloway was trying to eavesdrop on them, he would not get anything from Prowl.

Optimus nodded. He turned back to Galloway. "We would like authorization to combat this Decepticon threat before he gets what he wants." His words were mild, but he was testing now. Probing. Finding the boundaries.

"At this point," Galloway said, 'We've not yet positively identified the attack as a Decepticon. So how do we know we wouldn't be sending you there to help him?"

Ironhide growled, his fusion cannons arming in pure rage at the deliberate insult.

Optimus said, coolly in a tone that Ironhide had not heard in too long, "You are making a poor decision based on emotion. I have made the same mistake in my time, and others have died as a result. Their deaths are on my head. I urge you not to make the same mistake." Ironhide quelled himself. Optimus's words were directed at Galloway, but at least the first part could easily have applied to him. And Optimus felt a dark confidence build within him. A leader, not merely a warlord. An Autobot.

"We are," Prowl added, reasonably, "asking for your permission. Were we party to this, we would hardly put ourselves in a position where we might be refused."

"Asking means you are aware of the potentiality of being refused." Galloway leaned in. "Don't worry about us, Autobots. We've got our own weapon now. And I would highly recommend you not get yourself in the line of fire. We're sort of in a 'kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out' mood." And the comm clicked off.

"Well," Arcee muttered, "That was informative."

"It was, rather," Prowl said. "Unfortunately, it confirms everything Vortex and Lennox had said. And it puts us in an extremely precarious situation."

"Everything," a voice said from the doorway, "is a precarious situation when it comes to politics. If you don't figure that out, you're not going to survive long here."

"Master Sergeant," Optimus inclined his head. "We are…unused to politics."

"It's just like war, except the wounds aren't as obvious and the hurt longer." Sternburgh bounced into the room on his crutches.

"Well?" Arcee said. "You offered your information before. What's your advice now?"

"Advice?" Sternburgh pantomimed looking behind both shoulders. "Yee'd mock me forever if she heard this. But do what's right. I don't mean for the humans, or for the alliance with us, or for your cause. Do what's right…here." He thumped his chest. "Except, you know, what you guys have."

"We fight," Prowl said. "That is our default reaction to everything."

"Fight who is the question. If you fight that thing, are you fighting the Decepticons? That thing? Or your own demons?" A microflash of a smile. The human was enjoying himself. Then the smile faded. "Actually, leave the Northrop Frye stuff for later. Do what you can sleep with at night." He settled himself against a console, bowing out. "Just wanted to offer that if you needed a way off this island, Uncle Roe can make that happen." His skin was grey from weariness and pain, but there was some aura of energy in his movements. Someone glad to be acting. Confident in his purpose and abilities. Ironhide felt a stab of envy.

"Well, what do we do?" Ironhide fought to keep the challenge from his voice, raw rage at how Galloway treated Optimus, treated all of them, making him want to lash out. "We let them learn the hard way?"

"No," Optimus said. "We find a way off this island. As I tried to tell him, we cannot let the poor decisions of the few outweigh the needs of the many."

"And ourselves," Arcee added, darkly. "Let's admit, Optimus, we're trying to make a new life here. We have a stake in this as well, not just as some mobile task force, but as prospective citizens. If we will not acknowledge that to ourselves, how can we expect others to?"

Optimus nodded. "Yes. This is our home. And we have a duty, and a right, to defend it." He hesitated at the brink. He'd been passive, reactive too long, and he needed to gather the momentum. He'd acted on his own for too long, and the support of the three others in the room pushed him onward. A leader was nothing without followers who believed in him. And sometimes, that leader needed that faith from them as much as they needed faith in him. "Rally at the loading ramp on Runway One in half a cycle," he said, finally. "Autobots, let's roll out!"


	35. Ping

35. Ping

Starscream swore. The words were so unusual coming from his normally tightly precise lexicon that Barricade felt the twinge of worry that had been building in his systems fanned itself higher. He looked nervously at the jet out of the corner of his optics. Starscream bent lower over the monitor. Skywarp crowded in behind him.

"Who is that?" Skywarp asked, craning to see.

"Bits of it," Barricade muttered, "ping with Megatron's cis-scan." He felt the hard looks from both pairs of optics.

"Bits of it," Skywarp echoed.

Barricade shrugged. "Bits."

"The Fallen," Starscream breathed. "You cannot see it in the components, but he would be the only one…." One long talon touched the screen, as though it could reach through it and into the mech that was tearing up handfuls of earth and trees, as if determined to dig something out of the ground with huge, hasty swipes. He'd known it wasn't over. He'd known Megatron was planning something. Was this how Megatron had expected things to go?

It was Barricade's turn to swear, but his invective came more naturally.

"What is he after?"

Barricade called up some data. "This thing called the Large Hadron Collider is there. It can create a certain type of sub-atomic particle, that they call Higgs-Boson. One of the particles that's really behind all of the forces of the universe." He glared at Starscream's startled look. "Science Officer?" he reminded him, pointedly. A flicker of amusement on the jet's face. "It can create miniature black holes, this process."

"And that would be a…very bad thing for Megatron to get his hands on."

"Or the Fallen," Skywarp said. "We don't know which is in charge of that thing." The room suddenly seemed to chill.

Starscream straightened. "He must be stopped."

"What?" Skywarp took a step back. "You realize that that would be…."

"What? What would it be, Skywarp?" Starscream's folded wingflaps ruffled.

"Please," Skywarp said. "That is Megatron. Or the Fallen. Both are above us."

"Neither have our cause at heart," Starscream snapped back, irked that Skywarp was reminding him. He knew. He knew. He did not want to know.

"Do you?"

"How dare you?" Starscream's voice skirled up into a shriek. "How dare you question my loyalty. I serve the cause, not a mech. I serve a pure ideal, not a wayward…maniac!"

"Don't do this," Skywarp said, unsteadily. "He's…on our side."

"We have no side anymore," Starscream snarled. "We have Megatron—or what survived his death—serving his own ego, his own aims. We have a reign of fear so long as he is in charge. We have the Fallen. Who has never served our aims, but coopted them for his own. Has since the beginning." He cut himself short, aware he was bordering on incoherence. He had no way to put into words—he'd never previously tried—the frustration he'd felt. Did he think he was a better leader than Megatron? Yes. Did that make him a traitor? Not…yet.

It was an enormous step, and for a klik his toes dug into the deck plating, as though clinging to the edge of a cliff.

"I," he said, quietly, "am going to stop him. Or try to."

Skywarp grabbed his arm. "You can't. He'll kill you!"

"Dying for what I believe," Starscream said evenly, "is preferable to living as a coward who has swallowed too much hypocrisy."

The two looked at each other, the air between them crackling with a mutual sort of despair.

"Can help," Barricade cut in.

"You cannot," Starscream said. "You are too newly repaired. Your systems are fragile. You just recovered from a glitch." He rattled off excuses, throwing them like rounds at Barricade. He hated the flinches as each hit home.

"I can," Barricade said. He tapped his cortex. "Drones."

Starscream hissed. "No. You cannot risk it."

"You can risk yourself."

"It is different. You do not have to suffer for my convictions."

"Alone," Barricade said, around a sudden harsh lump of emotion, "you will die."

"I may die anyway."

"Let me take the same chance."

"No," Starscream said. "And that is an order."

The glare crackled between them now. "Understand," Starscream said, relenting, "that I do this to save you. Skywarp will keep your borderline treason a secret, whatever might happen. As a favor to me." A look between the two jets. Skywarp gave an infinitesimal nod. Starscream turned on his heel, striding out before either of the others could rally another objection. "I do what I must," he murmured, his voice raw with emotion and fear. He hated what he had to do, hated being driven to it. He would not compound his transgression by dragging Skywarp or Barricade down with him.

[***]

Megatron fought for control of the swirling mass of energy around him. He was in here, as though swallowed. It was…repugnant. He served the Fallen faithfully, all these ages. The Fallen had shown him another way, a way of defense. A way of power. He had been promised. And that promise had not been fulfilled. No matter: he would take what had been promised to him. He had served, patiently. He had paid in advance. The Fallen, his 'master' had made a tactical error: this was not the first system Megatron had brought down from the inside.

For the moment, he merely waited, watching, learning, letting the amalgamated frame borrow his strength to tear through the soft soil of the planet's surface, unearthing the collider's underground tunnel. Another consciousness—Flatline's, he supposed—was brought to the fore, evaluating the human scientific machine. Yes, Flatline seemed to say. What we want is here. It needs to be activated. Activated.

The Fallen's superconsciousness, like a cold, damp hand, closed around them. Megatron fought against it, blazing with heat against the clammy weight, as the Fallen pushed energy against the mechanism of the collider. A burst of frustration—this would take too long. Megatron gritted in satisfaction at the delay, at the Fallen's frustration. The Fallen deserved this feeling of helplessness, impotence, frustration. It was time and enough for the Fallen to have felt what Megatron had felt for ages.

More than that, time enough and more for the Fallen to experience the sense of betrayal he had also felt. Megatron was determined to oblige.


	36. Assault on Principle

(sorry for the delay-I'm out of town and I brought my trusty netbook and...it's not so trusty. Harddrive failure, I think? So, anyway.)

36. Assault on Principle

Starscream sliced down through the atmosphere, feeling the layers of atmosphere heat against his plating. But at his core, he felt a strange, heavy numbness, as if part of him was in a chrysalis of denial of what he was contemplating. He was going to outright attack Megatron. Open assault.

No. It wasn't Megatron. Not entirely. It was some unstable gestalt of arrogance and self-serving that had lost sight, entirely, of the mission. Which was, Starscream remembered, a free Cybertron. One where mechs weren't locked so rigidly into classes. One where the military had been allowed to do their job, protect Cybertron, and more than that to expand their dominion, find resources, keep the machine going. The Council's open secret: Cybertron had been running out of resources—rationing energon and supplies to the lower classes, to the military. Promoting false virtues such as making do with less. For certain classes, of course, while others reveled in their glittery comfort. The machine was…unsustainable, headed for a collapse. They'd needed to expand and live (by conquest or control), or die. Starscream had chosen life, always life. No matter what that life had made him eat, forced him through. He had chosen always life. Strength over weakness.

Not…now. And he felt a strange unsettled sensation that might have been fear, but it might have been the heady exhilaration o freedom.

And for a long time, he thought, as the atmosphere abraded his skin, the Decepticon army had been a model of precisely what they were promoting—grounders and airframes, gestalts and individual mechs, all working together, each using their strengths, letting their weaknesses simply become a gap for someone else to fill. It had been…beautiful in a way.

And somewhere along the line, aeons ago, they had lost that. Starscream had lost it, and recognized only that he was losing himself, cutting himself off from contact with his Trine, isolating himself from anyone and anything that might remind him. He'd buried that awareness, and himself, in leadership, in the belief that if he tried hard enough, climbed high enough, he could recapture that, reignite it in the mechs under him as well as himself.

He'd half-hoped Megatron's return would have galvanized them. Half-hoped, but half-envied as well, because it would have been an admission that, all along, Megatron was superior, was a better leader. He'd had…mixed feelings as well when that hadn't turned out to be the case. Under Megatron, if possible, the Decepticon forces had splintered—the Constructicons' reunion had bred ill-will among the other gestalts; airframes had begun throwing their ability in front of grounders.

Could no one see he was trying to pull them together?

No. Why should they, when he couldn't see it clearly himself. It tasted like treason. Like betrayal. It felt like the hard, hot, worried optics of Skywarp, judging him. It felt unstable, like standing on blowing sand, the way Barricade had focused on him, ready to follow, ready to throw himself into a fight he did not start. Starscream ached. Barricade remembered. Even when Starscream had lost that part of himself, through all these ages, Barricade had held onto it, deeply buried, stifled, but not strangled, the poignant belief in someone. Not something, not an ideal, but a living, functioning mech. The weight of that loyalty was crushing.

Please, he thought, as he leveled his flight path to intercept the thing that had once been the mech he had believed in, be safe, Barricade. Hold onto that. And…if I can be greedy and selfish and all the things I have been accused of being, please…remember me better than I was. Remember the better me. Just…remember.

[***]

"What are you doing?" Skywarp asked. Barricade had called up a host of screens, his talons flashing almost faster than Skywarp's optics could follow.

"Combat screens," Barricade said. He was, of course, partially lying. He'd made the decision that Blackout and Vortex should continue to search for the pieces of the spacebridge. And keep it quiet. And keep them the frag out of it. Someone had to survive. Someone had to make it, and he owed them that much.

"Are you going to watch?" His tone of voice was mildly appalled, as though he'd expected Barricade to enjoy it.

Barricade's optics flicked to Skywarp's, which were looking at him a little too keenly. "No," he said, flatly.

"Starscream ordered you not to—"

"You hold his betrayal secret? Hold mine, too. In the end, we're both dead, what does it matter?" His vocalizer grated at the words. He'd do something to repay Starscream back for…everything. Sorry that the best I can do is die with you. Going against your orders. It's all I can do.

"How can you fight…from here?"

Barricade wasn't aware he was grinding his electrum lipplates until a spark flashed in his vision. He hissed through the tension that seized his system. "Have a way. Need…something from my recharge."

[***]

Blackout frowned when he got the orders. First, because they were a reiteration of orders he was already following. Second because Barricade sent them on flat recording, not live. No chance to ask questions. No chance to gauge the tone of the smaller mech's voice. He hit a recall signal anyway, listened to it buzz in dead air. Frag. Something was up.

And he wasn't the only one who felt it. "What the slag's that about?" Vortex cut in.

Blackout hesitated. "Repetition of orders. We're to find and assemble the space bridge."

"Yeah, got that," Vortex said. "Twice now. You know what I mean."

Blackout did know. And a part of him smoldered slowly with an old rage. "Something's going on they don't want us to see." It was like…the last orbital cycles had been erased, and he was back facing off against Starscream. Betrayal.

Vortex's turn to pause. "Got a lock on one of them. Starscream." An uncomfortable moment. "What do we do?"

Well, Blackout, you never wanted to lead. You merely wanted a leader worth following. But sometimes…you don't get what you want. Sometimes you have to do…this. "Vectors for intercept."


	37. Sacrifice and Rage

A/N Heading into the home stretch here! Y'all might have heard that they've moved the release date for DOTM up to Wed 29 Jun? Anyway, oh yeah. Character death this chapter, maybe spoilery.

37. Sacrifice and Rage

Ironhide ducked behind a thrown-up berm of earth. His cannons had expended charge—he needed time to let them cool down, recharge. Whoever, WHATever they were fighting was the worst he had ever seen. One mech should not be this powerful. Or else—and this thought filled him with an icy anger—they were that out of practice, gone soft. And that would all be his fault. He growled. Both options sickened him.

"Optimus," he sent over comm. "Update? What's the plan?"

He could hear the tension in Optimus's voice. "Right now, pin it down."

Yeah, kind of failing at doing that, Ironhide thought. The giant mech—was it a combiner? Some new type of gestalt? It was hideous: amorphous, bubbling, armor boiling out limbs and faces. Restless, formless, constantly changing. Impossible to target, impossible to predict. He'd thought getting closer would solve that puzzle. It had not.—had stopped tearing up the ground, but that wasn't exactly the stuff of victory. And they couldn't, Ironhide knew, keep up their assault indefinitely. "What is it?"

"I...don't know. It feels like," a brief hitch, as though Optimus were uncomfortable talking about a 'feeling' this way, "the Fallen, but not."

"Someone like him? One of the other Primes?" Ironhide checked the levels on his cannons. Almost recharged. He wasn't asking for idle, philosophical curiosity. He just wanted an idea what they were up against.

"I don't think so." Optimus sounded unsure. Whatever else he might have said was cut off by a sudden explosion, so loud and so bright it lit up the evening sky like a sun.

"Well," Cliffjumper's voice cut over comm. "Categorize that as unexpected."

Ironhide turned, popping out from behind cover enough to get a glimps...of Starscream throwing missile fire down upon the strange, twisted gestalt with a fury that Ironhide hadn't seen from the jet in...too long. Since Cybertron. The sight, and the realization, struck some chord deep within him.

"What do we do?" Sideswipe asked.

"Let 'em destroy each other," Cliffjumper muttered. "Though I always wanted to be the one to take out that fraggin' jet."

"No," Ironhide heard himself say. "Keep up assault on the target and lay down covering fire for Starscream." He had no idea where it came from—some old place, beyond instinct, beyond all the Autobot training he'd given and received.

"What!"

"You remember whose side he's on?" Sideswipe asked.

"Listen to him," Optimus said, and the trust in his voice caused Ironhide to choke. All he'd ever wanted.

Pulse rifle fire and smaller lasers—like violent confetti in pink and blue—shot toward the huge mech, occupying him as Starscream pulled away from another strike run, trying to gain distance to turn for another. Ironhide added his own cannons, the heavy 'thoom's a satisfying statement.

The thing whirled, distracted from the approach of the jet. Ironhide's pulse blasts hit squarely, rippling against the metal, which seemed to bubble, glob and reform. Undamageable. It couldn't be.

Ironhide roared out of hiding, snapping his forearms, charging the cannons up in tandem. He had its attention. He just needed to hold it a bit longer.

Another round and the thing, faster that even Ironhide's optics could track, without seeming to move at all, shot out a pseudopod of almost gluey looking metal. Liquid, as if molten, but cold grey.

The blow smashed into Ironhide's chassis, transforming into a javelin as it did, punching a hole through his outermost armor, before shifting again, going liquid, amorphous, prising apart the armor, wrenching it open. Ironhide howled, feeling the cold metal—colder than space—wrap around his spark chamber. All those years. All those doubts, all those sacrifices. One more sacrifice. He could only hope it was enough. He had given, he thought, pleaded, begged with destiny, everything he had. Always.

He wondered if the jet recognized his fire. Wondered if Starscream would know what they were doing. He knew enough that the Air Commander would never stoop to gratitude.

[***]

Starscream, Megatron raged. It was always Starscream. And even though I knew he would betray me, knew it deeper than some of my most ancient core programming, he thought, the timing is galling. On the brink of victory. Even if it was a victory Megatron did not want. He would find a way, eventually, to seize control of this...twisted thing he had become, this partial life, borrowing senses, helpless to control anything, a passive passenger

As always. Starscream would not tolerate anyone else's success. Megatron wondered how long and how often the jet had done this in the past—only more subtly—tearing victory from his claws. Envy. Malice. The jet had never been loyal enough. Not like Blackout. Not like the others. If he hadn't needed the aerials, if they hadn't flocked to the jet following some ancient law, been familiar with his leadership, Megatron would have rid himself of that nuisance ages ago.

_You had_, a voice said in his mind, _always encouraged them to be ruthless and petty. You ought not be so surprised that he has learned this lesson so very well at your hand_.

Megatron's rage surged against the clammy presence. Silence! he roared, but his shout had no power, redounding into silence. He shall ruin everything, he shot back at the Fallen's dark presence.

_You shall, if you persist in such petty distractions. _

Megatron struggled, without a voice, without body, pure will shaking against will, tearing, clawing, rending with the very force of his identity, that which had come back from death twice, that which had sustained him under ice, under the crush of cold water and agony.

He has ruined me, he thought, feeding on that rage, fanning it with memory, feeling the heat of fury, hatred at the jet, his constant insubordination, constant sidelong suspicions, race through his discorporate self. Destroying him would have meant mutiny, but he had missed the chance, and Starscream had not. And that burned like chlorine, a dry salty scorching burn.

_You needed him. _

Never. Even he tasted the lie in that. And if so, he outlived his usefulness.

_He searched for you._

He took liberties. Megatron did not need the Fallen acting as some supra-corporeal conscience. He retorted, Starscream abandoned his post; he followed me based on opportunism, not loyalty.

_He was following his destiny, which is intertwined with your own. Had he not, you might still remain lost._

Megatron's entire spirit, his essence, howled in an all-consuming black rage, fury like cold fire. There was no destiny, save his. HE was fated; he was chosen. Everyone else—immaterial. Building blocks, mute stones to elevate him to what was rightfully his. He pushed beyond the immaterial bonds, thrashing against the Fallen's control, lashing against a heavy, probing presence. Megatron felt their body slow, felt the impacts of dozens of weapons blows against a force shield, felt that shield stutter, the Fallen's control slipping. More impacts, hot and stabbing lances across their combined net. Megatron fed on the pain. The one skill, the one advantage he had that the Fallen, that Optimus, that none of the others had. He took the pain, took the damage, and absorbed it into himself, seizing it, reshaping it, turning it back. He stabbed it into the Fallen's presence, driving through, reaching in, searching.

He found something, seized it with immaterial hands, reaching out simultaneously for the bronze jet tumbling in another backflip turn into a strike run. He seized them both, as though he clutched the Fallen and Starscream each by the throat. And he pushed. PUSHED.

And they winked out into the black blank coldness of space.


	38. Drawing Lines

Warning: character death. Again. ;_;

38. Drawing Lines

"Frag!" Sideswipe cursed. "What happened?" The air had seemed to split, a force flattening them to the ground like the impact of a giant meteor. By the time they had gotten to their feet, the twisted gestalt and Starscream were gone.

"Too much to hope that that much wrongness just...imploded," Cliffjumper said. He checked his weapons, more upset at the clods of dirt clogging one barrel than the sudden disappearance of their enemies. Enemies that disappeared suddenly could reappear suddenly as well.

"Ironhide!" Arcee cried out, spotting his limp frame. "Oh Primus. Someone get over there!"

"On it," Cliffjumper said. "Do what I can."

"Optimus," Sideswipe turned on the larger mech. "What the frag was that?" It had…killed Ironhide. With one swift, easy motion. As though sawing through butter. It was horrifying. They couldn't fight that. But frag. Sideswipe would die trying. No shame in dying beside a mech like Ironhide.

"The Primes," Optimus said. "They had the ability to travel through space like that."

"And the Seekers, if you believe the legends," Sideswipe said.

"Which means," Cliffjumper said over comm. "It can just as easily decide to come back once it's done dealing with Starscream." He scanned the area for cover as well as where it might return.

"Well," Arcee said, optics keen on the horizon. "If that's how it works, at least it won't be able to get a surprise drop on us." Optimus and Sideswipe exchanged a look. Sideswipe shrugged. Yeah, he didn't know if that was supposed to be a joke, either. "Something's coming," Arcee said. She'd had her comm on widescan. "Reinforcements?"

"What can you tell?" Optimus asked.

"Nothing at this point. Rotary model but there are a number of Decepticons it could be."

"Or human," Cliffjumper said. "Perhaps Galloway or some other less idiotic country liaison sent reinforcements." Desperately trying to occupy himself with tactics as he raced toward Ironhide's side, even knowing it was too late. They could see from mechanometers away that it was too late—the metal grey and dull, optics blank.

"Yeah, but...wouldn't count on them being too friendly, the way Galloway was talking," Sideswipe muttered. He shifted his stance, agitated. He hated aerial mechs. He knew his best fighting was ground based. Copters did not play to his abilities.

"We hold until we can verify," Optimus said. He knew enough of the human concern with political boundary: Americans were unlikely to aid.

"Three!" Arcee corrected. "Converging vectors. Well, almost."

They took up positions in a loose shape, outward, scanning with every sensor system they had.

"American. Black Hawk," Cliffjumper said, catching sight of one. That didn't match any known 'con.

"Pave Low!" Sideswipe shouted. He flicked his wrists, his energon blades snapping to life. "Fraggin' Blackout."

"Third? Third! Who's got the third?"

"Incoming, behind the Pave Low."

"Must be Vortex."

"Gotta be."

The air seemed to stretch, then tangle in the sounds of distant rotors, their disparate rhythms cascading against each other, crossing and dampening each other like intersecting circular ripples in water, making speed, vector hard to track.

Until the ground seemed to vomit up earth in front of Sideswipe's feet, wiry dark green grasses slapping against his armor. He jogged back, unruffled, unsurprised. This was what he did. This was where he trusted himself implicitly.

The heavens seemed to open, cannon and gunfire mixing with the pulse lasers the two Decepticons bore. The Black Hawk swept down, steel bullets punching through the air like awls, stabbing toward them.

"They know we're not the enemy, right?" Sideswipe said, grunting as one lucky hit dinged one of his arm plates.

"You heard what Galloway said," Cliffjumper snapped. "Don't think they much care anymore."

"Well then," Arcee said, readying his weapon. "Neither do I."

Optimus was about to say no when the air seemed to vibrate. Shimmer. Like the heat off a desert road. Arcee felt it first, shaking her head as if trying to reset her audio. Sideswipe caught the gesture, but before he could formulate a question he felt it too. A strange uncomfortable buzz above the audio, that coalesced to something like a staticky knife sliding into his processor.

The shots from the copters started firing wide. Affecting them? Cliffjumper couldn't tell, his own sensors going fuzzy and odd from whatever it was.

Sideswipe swore. "Vortex was right." He was just as unhappy at the jangling pain of the copter-mounted weapon as the admission that Vortex hadn't lied.

"What do we do?" Arcee shouted, louder than she needed to, unable to hear clearly above the ringing of the weapon. Her systems began to burn. She winced, feeling almost as though someone had set fire to her wiring. It was a low pain, but building, slowly and across her net, across a spectrum of sensation: burning yet cold, sharp yet dull. Her armor scorched like acid.

Beside her she heard Sideswipe hiss, glancing down at his forearms. He was feeling it too.

Optimus wavered. Every Autobot there knew what he was thinking: humans were on that Black Hawk And a direct attack on humans, even in self-defense, was a step that...was not easy to take. Even Arcee recognized the magnitude of the moment—this was what Barricade had endured. The mech who had tortured her sisterling. He had…Arcee thought, paid for it. Words bubbled from Cliffjumper's vocalizer, as he knelt to return fire to the Decepticons, trying vainly, pointlessly, to protect Ironhide's fallen form, but even he knew, felt, sensed, as they all did through the pain, that this decision was Optimus's alone. This was respect: they would stand and die if he ordered it.

And Optimus knew that. Despite their differences, they came together, with a faith and strength of purpose that awed him. He thought back to the early days, the first hard decision he'd ever made: to sentence some of his mechs—valuable mechs, honorable mechs—to divert the attention of the Decepticons by engaging them at Tyger Pax. He had been sickened at the thought—that they were leaving, evacuating the planet, leaving home, condemning those who stayed to at best a piecemeal existence.

It...never got easier.

But he'd been dodging responsibility, tried to shift that terrible weight. And still his mechs held to their loyalty. He had no choice. The preservation of life must include the preservation of the best of life—honor and courage and devotion and love and everything the mechs around him embodied. He fought against worry, against pain, and against the blurring confusion of this new human weapon, doing its best to ruin him.

"Autobots," he said, raising his own pistol, the muzzle slewing from side-to-side as the humans' weapon frustrated his targeting reticle, "While we still can, enga—"

Before he could finish the word, the larger helicopter, Vortex, his dual large rotors thundering, tore directly for the Black Hawk, guns peppering the sky between them, on a lurching intercept vector. Blackout's own guns struggled to cover for Vortex, concentrating both their fire on the Black Hawk, as if the Autobots didn't even exist.

An explosion, white and hot and orange, billowing flames and smoke. A tearing, rending metal sound. One of Vortex's rotors spun free, slicing through the air in some sort of slow or dilated motion.

"Oh!" Arcee said. Partly in relief: the weapon's terrible jangling stopped, but...Vortex. Death happened in combat but some stuck out as larger or uglier or more...awful than others. The helplessness, she thought. Unable to do anything. If any part of Vortex had survived the impact, the fall to the ground would have taken him. And she thought, suddenly, of Flareup. What do you do, she thought, when the enemy you have spent so much of your life hating that it's become a strut to your identity, does something you understand? Does something you respect and honor? What do you do when you look at your enemy and…cannot hate them?

She fell to her knee strut, wordless. No, not wordless: too full of words, too full of images and emotions


	39. Revisioning

A/N: Vortex's death with context. I just realized I will be finishing posting this (4 more chapters) JUST before it gets jossed to hell by the new movie. Weird.

39. Refraction

Blackout and Vortex had raced to intercept Starscream's coordinates, but just as they locked on longscan, Starscream and…something else, big, some signal not on their records…had blinked off their displays.

"Collision," Vortex had guessed. Possibly. Not much else accounted for how a mech's energy signature could just wink out like that. There, and then not there. Blackout had started to say something to caution Vortex to keep his scans hot, but stopped. Vortex knew. It was an insult to try to tell another veteran his job. He would not do that to Vortex.

They flew on in tense silence. The dronemasters had taken control of their teams, one in France, on in England, with the calm assurance of mechs without such complicated loyalties. They would continue to unearth the space bridge components, fight back if need be. But at the moment, their arrivals had gone unnoticed.

The two flew on grimly for intercept, simultaneously arming their weapons as they hit range perimeter. Autobot signatures popped up on their Friend/Foe determiners, blue dots, currently still. That….meant nothing. There was…no sign of wreckage. Nothing that indicated where Starscream had gone, not even so much as a fading contrail. Blackout refused to think about what Starscream's disappearance might mean, long term. Starscream, gone. He could not afford to allow himself to be distracted.

"What," Vortex said, suddenly, too startled to inflect it as a question, "is that."

They were on an intercept with another helo, American model. A long way from home, Blackout thought. Well. For humans. It didn't quite match his ident registry, though: two large projections, like large cones, hunched on the sides of the cab. Terrible drag, Blackout thought, and would ruin maneuverability in normal combat.

But as they neared, and suddenly his proximity sensors flared red with warning before going grey and erratic, he realized: normal combat was not its way. It tingled and ached in his systems the same way that thing on the aircraft carrier had.

They had another one. He'd thought he had destroyed their only one. "Barricade," he said, shortly.

Vortex growled. "Listening on their comm. They've been told to be careful, since this is the spare. It'd apparently take lunar orbit cycles to ready another one."

Blackout grunted. "Top priority then." He did a pass over the startled Autobots. It looked like they were getting the full brunt of the weapon's effects—airborne, he and Vortex were not suffering quite so badly. Not that they weren't feeling it. His optics flicked in and out of focus randomly, his teeter hinges seemed to swing, as if wrenched by some outside hand, causing him to struggle to keep elevation, much less course heading.

Vortex muttered something and they both angled their fire at the small helicopter. Autotargeting was fouled by the weapon; they had to rely on manual. Frustrating. It was like, Blackout thought, the early days of the war. Having to do everything without automation. Full circle, he thought, then jerked himself up. Odd thought. Bad omen. He almost looked skyward to see if he could spot the Allspark's comet trail scratching the evening sky.

"Fraggin' sucks!" Vortex snapped, his guns seeming to almost magically miss the Black Hawk. "Can't even lead fire on this thing."

Blackout grunted. He was having the same problem. And either the Autobots weren't firing, or their aim was as fouled as theirs. Some small plus, he thought. And then the pain hit. Vortex howled something inchoate, some ancient, shapeless collection of sounds that represented pure agony, and after that, Blackout couldn't tell if his audio had shorted, or caught the sound on a loop or if his own vocalizer tore out a high raw keen of pure pain. If this was what the Autobots were getting, no wonder they weren't putting up much of a fight.

"It's going to take all of us," he said, or thought he said. He had no idea if he managed to get the words out until Vortex moved. "ONE weapon. Going to take us all."

Vortex's voice was over mission commnet, thin and pained, the characters splitting into static and reforming. "I got it."

"What?" he queried back. Vortex laid, as best he could, a high intercept for the Black Hawk. Blackout saw through his fitfully-blanking vector HUD, the blue and pink of Autobot fire, cutting toward them, like fireworks. Intercept. "No!" he pushed over commnet.

"Only way I can think of," Vortex shot back.

"Not really doing our best thinking right now!" We could pull back. Let the damned thing take out the Autobots. We could figure out where Starscream went later.

"Yeah." Vortex bucked, his dual rotors clawing the air, lurching to one side. "Hey," he said, and Blackout could hear the shorted bleatings of danger-close proximity alarms over his damaged audio, "Tell 'em I chose this."

Impact, and the evening sky lit up, throwing knife-edged shadows across the ground. The commnet went dead. Vortex blinked off Blackout's F/F tagger before his words had faded from the commnet screen. Tell who? "I will," he sent back over the dead line. Vortex had chosen. And because of him, the Autobots were alive, recovering slowly. Because of him, pain was receding from Blackout's sensor net in that unsettling way that always left one questioning—how could it have been that bad? Because of him, the Americans had lost their last weapon.

But why? 'Tell 'em.' The answer to everything, it seemed, to Blackout's pain-raw cortex. Tell them I chose this. A statement of will. Of freedom. Of wanting to be meaningful. Significant.

Blackout did a slow loop of the battlefield, snatching vid of the torn up ground, of the Autobots, recovering, slower than he had, warily watching him, weapons ready but not firing. A moment of truce. A moment of awed, stunned honor for Vortex's sacrifice. Yeah, Blackout thought bitterly. We do sacrifice, too. You don't have the monopoly on virtue.

I'll tell them, Blackout thought, wheeling away. No Autobot fire lit his wake. I'll tell everyone.


	40. Uncivil Disobedience

40. Uncivil Disobedience

Barricade snarled in frustration. He did not need this right now. Bad enough he was wrestling with the trepidation of once again donning that helmet, reducing himself to a thing, an upstart droneling. He held the…thing (he could not stop himself from thinking of it as a 'thing') balanced between one leg and the console, tapping startup codes with one hand. The other clutched nervously at the helmet's processor-feed hoses. He'd have to do without those now. No time. Just…whatever he could control with his own cortex. Without, of course, blowing out his own processor load. Worrisome enough. On top of that he did not need Blackout's transmission. "You disobeyed a direct order."

"You don't have authority over me," Blackout snapped.

"Orders were re-sends from Air Commander Starscream," Barricade shot back. "Going to tell me he has no authority over you?" Challenge.

A frustrated sound. "Not even sure he's alive."

"He is," Skywarp said. He loomed over Barricade's secondary console, optics flicking among a series of screens. "I've got his cis-alpha scan right here."

"With?"

"Yes."

No need to finish the question. Even if they could figure out what, or who, to call that amalgamation of mechs. "Where."

"Not far. The drones can reach them in a few decakliks."

He might be dead by then; Barricade figured neither the Fallen nor Megatron would whisk Starscream away simply for a private chitchat. He had gone too far, finally. And there was no way to pull him back. Still, Barricade would try.

"Drones?" Blackout's tone was hostile. "What are you plotting?"

"Shut it. You have your orders."

"You're not shutting me out of this."

"There's nothing you can do. We need the space bridge. No matter what." Whoever won, they needed the space bridge. It was possibility. Potential. For too long they'd followed the one lead, the one aim. The space bridge opened up everything. It could not fall into the hands of the Autobots. It represented the only thing Barricade believed in now: hope.

A long silence.

"Vortex is gone."

Barricade swore. And felt that ugly oily calmness wash over him. "And would he be dead if you'd followed your slaggin' orders?" A vicious thing to say. Stark and ugly. True, but that kind of truth that is a dangerous weapon—a knife with no safe place to hold.

Blackout cut the line. Barricade's optic shutters closed. Another one lost. Another one driven away. Just as well, Barricade. Just as well no one feel like mourning you if this kills you.

The batch of drones popped up on screen, initiated. Ready to go. Now or never, Barricade, he told himself.

Skywarp's optics caught the long lines of orange suddenly appear on the monitor. "And this works…how again?"

Barricade sighed, internally grateful for the delay. "Each drone's been fitted with a receptor module." He tapped the spot behind his left audio. "Standard cortical implant. Used to use them on fully sentient mechs, which is why it's an external mod." Oh how well you remembered your history. Had you ever left this behind? Skywarp nodded, his optics back on the cis-alpha scan, as if trying to read his Trine mate's mind through the string of numbers.

"Drones have no firewalls." Which was his hope—that he wouldn't have to fight for control. Without an entire deck of processors, he wasn't sure he could fight past firewalls. Frag. He wasn't sure he could do it at all, anymore. "Easier to control." He gave one last look at the helmet. The black faceplate stared back at him blankly. Goading him. Coward. Droneling. See how far you have come? You come back to me. He shuddered.

[***]

Skywarp waited as long as he could bear. Which…wasn't long. He'd felt so keenly, the short time he'd been here, how much had come between him and Starscream. An enormous gulf, filled with recrimination and shame. He could not figure, though he had tried, how to bridge that. But he knew he had to do more than watch a combat screen. He knew he had to try.

Barricade had gone…wherever. Once he'd donned that helmet, its faceplate a sweeping expanse of black, he'd seemed to cut off, gone silent, hands flying over an imaginary keypad. Skywarp had watched the drones launch. And could take no more. He slipped out, to join them. Was it betrayal? Was it treachery? Was he really choosing his Trine over his loyalty to the Decepticon cause?

What was the 'cause' anymore? And what could one intangible matter compared to his Trine mate—a real, wounded presence.

He let the questions skirl through his processor as he threw himself from a launch bay, washing over him like a grey tide. He refused, right now, to think of the answers.

There would be a time for answers, later. A time to make sense of things. A time to fix blame, and evaluate motive and worry about consequences.

Now, all that mattered was that he was not a spectator. Choosing not to act is a choice itself. Choosing not to fight was not the same as choosing peace. Especially when the peace was of one's conscience.

He would die by Starscream's side. He'd rather that than live knowing he had done nothing. There was no point in a life paid for in betrayal, or one made by clinging onto thin recrimnations. Starscream would forgive him—had more or less insisted he be left alone to his treachery, to protect Skywarp. But Skywarp would not forgive himself. To come so far, to see just enough of Starscream to remember what had been lost…only to lose it all again? The chill of space crept through his armor as he fired his afterburners, rocketing with the speed that only a jet frame had toward that cis-alpha.

He'd had his doubts about Starscream. The bronze jet had done his best to cut them off, starve them of attention, of news, until he had become a distant ghost, seemingly wrapped in pursuit of his own ambitions. It had been easier to think of him that way: it hurt less to think your Trine mate was at fault, was vain, greedy, ambitious. And he was. He was all of those things. But he was also…more. Skywarp had seen it in the way he softened around him, around Barricade. Had seen it in the crisp professionalism of the battle briefing. Had seen it in the way the bronze face had gone still, stricken, when he'd seen the wreck of Barricade on the aircraft carrier. The whole mission—no one out for himself would have done that much. Starscream had pushed them away, but not to clear the way for himself. Skywarp knew that now.

He hoped he hadn't come to that realization too late.


	41. Entropy Incarnate

41. Entropy Incarnate

So far so good, but, they weren't even to the battle zone yet, Barricade thought. He ran through a ready list of commands. He'd never liked zero-g combat. Too many dimensions and variables. Not even thinking of the dimensions and variable of the personal alliances that swirled around this whole affair. Starscream. Skywarp. Blackout.

Barricade pushed those thoughts roughly aside, concentrating instead on the drone pod he had managed to prep for this mission. Forty drones. That was all they could fine. Forty. It didn't seem nearly enough, even though it was already straining his processor.

"You require assistance."

Barricade stiffened. Soundwave. "I got it."

"You require assistance," Soundwave repeated.

Barricade snarled. "Not from you."

"Processing speed: insufficient for the task."

Yes, Barricade thought, but nothing he'd offer is free. "And what do you know—or care—about the task?"

"Explanations irrelevant."

Huh. Megatron must have blown him off. Done something to shatter Soundwave's motivation. Which maybe wasn't a much different flavor of loyalty than Starscream's. Angling for advantage, for control. Even now. Or perhaps he would double cross at the last moment.

It…didn't matter. Barricade could cling to pride as tightly as he could: he did need the extra processing speed. He set up a quick hard firewall with a unpleasant little auto-triggered shell. Just in case. "Fine." He felt the connection strengthen, broaden, deepen, as Soundwave opened his processing capacity. Barricade felt the greedy grasp of Soundwave's processor—a bit too late—realizing that the satellite wanted access to the CC protocols. Huh. For all the good it would do him. Stupid, trusting Barricade. Take care of that later. Right now, though….

The thing that was and was not Megatron or the Fallen hung in space, its malformed arms tearing at Starscream, one hand clawing into the jet's ankle, energon frosting and bursting into pink icy glitter in the cold. Barricade sent the first deca of drones wildly at them, carelessly, desperately. Buying time.

He hated how easily he remembered the waste. Ten drones, gone, just like that, just to buy Starscream's temporary freedom.

The bronze jet tore free, taking full advantage, his thrusters biting into the vacuum, spinning away. The mech blasted the air after him with some greenish projectiles.

"Get out," Barricade sent to Starscream. "I'll take care of it."

"You will do no such thing," Starscream said. He wheeled, coming in for another run. "This is my fight. I…must do this."

"I must do this," Barricade shot back.

A long moment. Starscream narrowly evaded the thing's grasp—it lunged with unfollowable speed, claws still managing to scratch sparks from one of Starscream's wings.

"Foolishness," Starscream retorted. But he could have made it an order, could have demanded Barricade leave. He didn't: his warrior's honor could not refuse another's. Barricade sent his second deca in more cautiously, throwing them into a ring, a bowl around the mech, firing their weapons into a crossfire. Starscream lunged down through the top of the bowl, firing missiles into the creature. It burst into blue-orange flames, the optics going white, furious, blank pits of hatred and ambition.

The flames licked out: the second deca blanked off Barricade's registry. Gone. Just like that.

"Drained," Soundwave muttered, his voice a thin echo in Barricade's audio. "It has, apparently, that power."

A clue, Barricade thought, to Soundwave's sudden shift in loyalty. One he did not have time, right now, to puzzle all the way out. "Drained."

"It requires the energy of the living to sustain itself."

Like a living metaphor of the war, Feeding upon the sparks of the living: the more innocent the better. Barricade hated it, suddenly, with a revulsion he'd never felt for anything before. Everything he'd ever hated about the war—the senseless waste, the nihilism, the uncertainty. The nameless, amorphous thing that stripped any honor or dignity from death. The thing that proved it all a lie.

"If it needs, we can starve it."

"It would take too long, I suspect."

Probably. Something to keep in mind. Barricade considered his last two decas of drones. He swung one in a swarm, diving down and then swooping away. Starscream tore in an intricate flight path over and around it, turning it into a feint, then a moving shield, cutting through space in a way that Barricade had to envy. His fourth, he spread slowly in a ring, farther out from the first. Surely the thing's draining power had a maximum effective radius. Surely it had some limit.

"STARSCREAM!" it roared. A hole somehow punched itself through the cluster of drones toward the Air Commander.

"That," Soundwave said coolly, "is our tactical opening. It is distracted by Starscream."

That is NOT, Barricade snarled, a tactical opening. Not one he would accept. He would not advance by Starscream's pain. "Starscream's not bait."

Another jet zoomed into his display, firing desperately at the thing's broad, flanged back. Skywarp. Another one, Barricade sighed. Another idiot, just like him, just like Starscream. Not knowing when to give up. Not even sure why they were still fighting, other than they'd found something they could cling to.

The thing seemed to tear apart space with a sound, and the third deca of drones blew apart as though they were as insubstantial as leaves, bits of armor, sparking, dying circuit boards spinning and flashing off into space. Starscream jolted, his thrusters cutting off.

Get out, Barricade thought, desperately. Move. Move. MOVE! Panic burst across his cortex. One deca left. Ten drones. And Starscream wasn't moving, drifting limp in space, his optics dim. "Starscream," he said, over comm. "Hang tight. Last deca will do extraction. Get you back."

"…no. *kzz*. Mission priorit *khhhhhhh* distraction."

The panic flamed up, scorching itself to a kind of white rage. "You decided for me. You came for me." He shifted his attention to his last deca, spiraling them in toward Starscream, firing in a tight, precise helix to slow the thing's approach. Two of the nearest blinked off his registry. Eight left. He boosted their firepower, blasting chips of armor off it. Still it came.

Skywarp drove another attack at the thing's back, dipping into danger close range, trying to tempt or goad the thing into turning its attentions onto him instead. Its bulk and bubbling shape made its movement through space slow, ungainly. But inexorable.

One more down. Seven. He tightened his grouping, focusing their fire on one location—a thinner spot in the armor under the throat. Six.

Skywarp grabbed the sixth drone, its form shattering at his touch. "I have an idea. Probably a bad one."

Well, even a bad idea was better than what Barricade had, which was a countdown of his dying last deca.

"Control modifications for these drones. Where?"

"Why?"

"It's still a mech."

Barricade blinked, his five remaining screens stuttering in the feed. Skywarp wanted to put one of the CC control modules on that thing. It was a terrible idea. Barricade didn't have the capacity, even with the boost from Soundwave, to fight through those firewalls.

It was the only idea they had.

"Yes," he said, simply.

Skywarp grunted assent, flying in closer, circling, warily. Four. He grouped them in a tight ring around Starscream, ready to snatch him for evac.

"Barri*kiiiiiiiiikt*," Starscream's audio feed was weak. "Not worth it."

Shut up. SHUT UP. I'll decide what's worth it. I'll decide. Not you. "Need to concentrate," he snapped.

Skywarp dove in, slapping the control mod against a cortical line. The thing shrieked across audio, clawing for the module, grabbing Skywarp with one hand, crushing at the wrist that had placed the mod. Skywarp howled in agony. Starscream, unable to move, was a frozen witness. A high thin keen of horror as he saw the thing slowly tear at Skywarp's arm. The black jet got his legs around, shoving the entire weight of their servos against the thing. His arm tore at the elbow, slowly.

Barricade threw his attention into the mod, pouring all of his control into the thing. The remaining drones fell still, as he dropped active control of them.

[***]

White rage. A blinding fury such as he had never felt seemed to blast against him like a force of wind. It couldn't grasp his combat control protocols, but it knew it had an intruder and it savaged him. The self-defense shells he had put up against Soundwave popped up, triggered. The rage battered against them, filling his audio with sound, his sensornet with some refracted kind of pain that shifted and blew in the maelstrom.

He pushed on. There had to be a way to take control. STOP. He shoved the command at it, crude, simple, basic machine language. Primitive, but essential. He felt the servos slow, felt the constant shifting of the shape begin to dwindle. This wasn't control, not what he wanted, not what he needed, but it was enough. He hoped, he wished Skywarp had the wherewithal to grab Starscream and get out.

_And what_, the voice came suddenly, an icy chill that sliced through the hot fury, _are you?_

The Fallen. It had to be. Or…what was left of him. Or…maybe what he was when stripped of a body. Immortal. Ancient.

He steeled himself, though he felt once again like all those ages ago, a tiny, four-opticked droneling. Puny. Pitifully small. "I'm your end," he thought, as hard as he could.

_I have no end. _

"Everything that begins has an end." Pointless philosophy. Pretention. It came to him easily enough; a long-practiced habit of contrariness, his innate ability to find the riling comment. The fury, held in momentary abeyance, crashed forward again, battering the defensive shell. And then another presence in the white madness, incoherent, howling like a gale of frustration and rage: Megatron. Megatron stripped of the intelligence and charisma that had made him, once, a great leader.

Had he…always been like this under that mask? Barricade remembered following him willingly, gladly, seeing him as salvation, his vision for Cybertron as the a better thing, a future he was willing to sacrifice a mediocre present for.

It didn't matter, and not only because Barricade didn't have the time, nor the strength, to deal with it right now. It didn't matter because the green-tinged madness and rage was all Megatron was now. And there was no return from this, no redemption. Only dissolution. A thing that might have been pitiable if it hadn't done great parts of this to itself. **Kill**, it raged at him. **Traitor.**

The Fallen's white presence pushed against it. _No. This one is useful. We shall incorporate him. Take him_. Barricade's attention snapped as he felt the line to Soundwave cut—the extra processing speed gone. And he was entirely alone.

He—discorporate, an intrusive knot of sentient programming—trembled. He would rather have the clean death on the aircraft carrier than what this thing intended: a life-in-death, his power stolen, his personality left as a mute witness. Perhaps he too would go mad. Perhaps he'd dissolve into this white maelstrom and know nothing except torment. Perhaps he'd retain his memories, this memory, of having tried, for once in his life, to reach beyond himself, to do something noble, to save someone who had saved him: the worst most ironic torment of all. Madness or death were the only outcomes.

The world outside he wasn't even able to access any longer. He sharpened his attention to a stake, stabbing through the blinding storm, reaching desperately, frantically, for code he could manipulate. Something he could control. It fought him at every turn.

But at least it had to fight. At least, he thought, it was leaving the others alone.

He clutched at a handful of control commands, just as his defensive shell shattered, and a third presence leered in at him, coldly curious.


	42. Crash

A/N Only one chapter left. ;-;

42. Crash

Skywarp watched the behemoth slow, then stop, the constant shifting of its plating, as though some hideous worm were crawling under the armor, slowing, as if freezing, gelling. Had the control module worked? Should he attack, follow up on the creature's incapacitation?

He looked down at his crushed wrist, the damaged cables shorting sparks into space, pain crackling his sensor net.

"Starscream?" His voice held all the worry in the world as he shifted his gaze to the inert form. Don't be dead. But then, also, don't be suffering. Foolish contradictions.

"Leave."

"No. I'll get you out of here." He boosted his thrusters toward the bronze frame.

"…*kzzz* -tack now. Chance…*hhhhh* distracted."

Skywarp wavered. He hadn't at Tunguska because he hadn't had this choice—saving Starscream there was winning the battle. Here, it was leaving the battle. He balanced precariously on the edge of indecision.

The drones, who had been hanging as limp red-opticked figures, stirred slowly, clumsily. And a new voice came over the commnet. "Retrieval initiated." The drones sluggishly gathered around Starscream, using their thrusters to begin towing the jet away. Starscream's face was numb, paralyzed expressionless, but even so, Skywarp imagined he could see the shame and worry in his Trine mate's optics.

"Go," Starscream said.

Skywarp hesitated one last nanoklik, before wheeling back. He opened all of his weapons systems, determined to tear his way through the mech if he had to do it with his one remaining hand. He didn't know who he was fighting, but he knew this was right.

Armor flaked off from the impacts of his hits. He heard himself snarling in satisfaction, hoping for a sign of pain. He wanted it to feel pain, to suffer. Suffer for what it did to Starscream, to the drones. Suffer for his own hand, and more than all of these, suffer for the crisis of decision it had thrust upon Skywarp. Hurt, he thought, for making me choose.

The thing's head lifted. Optics flared with static, lenses cracking from within, shards of glass flying outward. _NO._ It shoved the word at him like a forcefield. _NO. It shall not. _

Skywarp switched his aim to the optics, retargeting for the cortex. He could tear the spark apart later.

_No._ The word reached out, wrapped around him like a giant, iron hand. He felt his outer flares of armor crush, dent, the hand somehow heating him to insulation-scorching heat. Redline alarms blared across his display, as the strange pressure began burning him. He felt torn, pulled, wrenched from his frame, as though he were liquid being wrung from his hapless, helpless frame.

Primus, he thought, vaguely, through the pain. I am dying. And…I don't know how. Or why.

But…do we ever?

[***]

Barricade felt the surge, felt the new presence seep in, struggling, kicking, refusing. Trying to refuse. Starscream, he thought. Starscream or Skywarp. It felt big and old. It resisted.

The thing redoubled its efforts. _Destroy. Take, hollow out, feed upon. Feed upon. Mine. It has always been mine, all of it. Every mech, every being. Mine._ The magnitude of the greed was terrifying. The concentration on the jet broke its hold upon Barricade. He could seep through its grasp. He clutched at the small commands he had left, reaching for something, anything useful.

Nothing came to hand: files tagged 'combat' were locked harder than he had time to hack. Others, in script too old for him to read, seemed to flow from his grasp. He grabbed, frantically, after one, with some character he recognized as 'defensive', tore it open, scrabbling at the code without even reading it, before it could, also, slip away.

The code from his own shell was simple, childish. A mirror code. Simplest hacking defense—nothing more than a speedbump to a skilled hacker: it flipped any active code back to attack its sender. He activated it, throwing it around the bubble that was the coalescing new presence, and activated the code he had snatched, throwing it in. It had to do…something.

The presence blinked out.

The white tempest blazed a bloody red, turning on Barricade, where he hunched in the shattered fragments of his defensive shell. Please have lived, he begged. Please. It will have made this worth something.

The red storm crashed upon him with a deafening howl.


	43. Aftermath 2

A/N: Wow. And so it ends. The last chapter. For those of you who have made it thus far, through a story that my LJ friends call 'unreadable' I wish I could give you some kind of prize. Instead, just *hugs*. You're awesome.

43: Aftermath

Her optics flickered open, focusing first at the bright yellow armor of the face peering down at her, the optics tight blue points of concern. "Visual's up," a gruff voice said. "Looks good."

A blue-armored face pushed in, beautifully familiar.

"Chromia." The word floated up to the top of her processor—the name that matched that face. "Chromia," she repeated, tasting the name, feeling memories tendril up around the sound.

"Good sign," the yellow mech—Ratchet, her cortex fed her—muttered. "Recognition."

Chromia nodded. "Yes, it's me."

"Where's…?" Her optics flicked. There should be someone else here. Someone was missing.

Chromia's face flinched. "She…had to go. There's been a battle."

Battle. More flashes of memory, and then an image of Arcee—standing, defiant, a weapon ready. Arcee. "She can handle herself," she said, confident. Arcee could do anything.

An exchange of glances between Ratchet and Chromia. Chromia nodded. "She's fine. She's on her way back."

She smiled. "I can't wait to see her."

Ratchet tapped her on the shoulder. "What do you remember? Where are you?"

"I'm in the repair hangar. Diego Garcia. We've been here for two orbital cycles."

"Can you remember the last week?" His optics focused keenly. She recognized the word 'week' as an indigenous term. Seven solar cycles.

"No." Her supraorbital ridges raised. "Should I be concerned?"

Ratchet shook his head. "No. The memory gap will remain."

"Oh. Well. If anything important happened, I can count on my sisters to catch me up." She reached out a hand, looping her fingers with Chromia's. She smiled up. Everyone looked worried. Why did everyone look worried. There was nothing to worry about.

Her brow furrowed. "I—I cannot remember my own name." Her optics narrowed in a mild alarm. It would come to her. She was sure of it. She did a ping of her own ident code. Yes. This must be it. She smiled broadly, optics wide and innocent. She seemed to remember them different. She seemed to remember bars, lines? They were gone now the world a broad, wide beautiful expanse of light and color. "I am Elita-One."

[***]

Blackout went back to the battlefield. He knew he would. He always went back, always. He hated that he inflicted this upon himself. But he did.

He held the broad black rotor—the mounting hinges charred and warped. He sank it into the ground, so that they would not forget. No one would forget. Vortex had died here. Someone had died. It mattered. It always mattered.

He tapped his comm, a long series of codes, and a query.

"Unusual," Soundwave said.

"Just do it. He needs to know."

A moment of silence. "Yes."

Blackout stood, running a thumb over the twisted metal of the rotor's end. His comm ran through the strange echoing wails and clicks of a multiple relay call, boosted by Soundwave's comm.

"Onslaught, on," a voice said. Quiet. Tired.

"Blackout. Nemesis."

"Vortex," Onslaught said. His voice was tight. He knew. "Tell me," Onslaught said. Not an order. A plea.

Blackout had promised. A dead comm line, a ghost, but he had promised. "He chose it," he began.

[***]

Barricade groaned. He'd been aware of pain, pain like he had never known, larger than he could hold. And that became another agony, this feeling of being overfull, surfeited with agony.

And now, this. The pain ebbing and he could feel the contours of his body. He flexed his fingers. Something responded. Simpler, he told himself. He initiated his optics, and audio, basic sensory feeds.

Frag. Repair bay. Again.

Worse, a sleek bronze face staring down at him. Again.

"Getting really old," he croaked.

"I rather enjoy it," Starscream said, blandly. His own voice was thin, and Barricade noticed several gleaming patches of new armor, new hoses and cables. "At least you are alive."

"Looks like it." He didn't even look that bad. It was all…in his head. All in the combat control programming. That fraggin' helmet, taking one last bite at him. All that agony—illusory. Signal echo. Real and yet unreal.

"Soundwave had to cut the connection. I fear there will be repercussions."

"Probably," Barricade muttered. Soundwave must have gotten something while he was mucking around. He'd have the repairbots run a diagnostic. "What—happened?"

"You, apparently." A tentative smile. "I am afraid I cannot explain it, clearly. Skywarp says he was being absorbed into the thing, then he found himself on the deck plating in your cubicle. And…it…imploded."

"Sounds kinky," Barricade attempted a joke. It was a lame joke, but the attempt itself was enough. "Must have been what that program code was." That file he tore into must have been the Fallen's teleportation. Oh, Primus. Relief almost burned against his spark chamber. "Skywarp's…?"

Starscream tilted his head. "He is coming out of CR right now."A slight dip of the head—Starscream wasn't here to visit Barricade, but for Skywarp. But that somehow made it easier. He wasn't the object of Starscream's concern or pity. A large bronze hand curled into a fist. "Thank you for saving him."

"I…uhhh," Barricade blanched. He'd wanted approval, gratitude, appreciation. Hadn't he? He…had no idea how to respond. "Just…yeah." He scrambled for another topic. "So…you're in charge, huh?"

The grin returned, sly. "It so happens that I am."

"Convenient." He struggled to sit up, pausing as his head spun, his talons clutching into the mesh to steady himself.

"I…should say I have earned it," Starscream said, quietly. Barricade nodded. Both over the years and through Megatron's violence, Starscream had earned it. Funny how it had taken Megatron's return—the answer to what they'd all thought was their wish, their salvation—to show them what they'd had all along.

"So, what now?"

Starscream's optics drifted toward the door to CR. Weighing the good he could do going in there (none) with staying here. "We shall assemble the space bridge, as planned."

"We leave?"

"We have the option. There are things here we have yet to collect—that second terrestrial energon source, for one." Another glance at the door. "But then…." But then, for the first time, options. Opportunities. No longer mere survival. Something more. Something…more.


End file.
